The Spell Book Of Listen Taylor (3 page)

Tuesday, Cath got a chance to talk to her friends Lenny D'Souza (teacher, Grade 6B, and school counselor) and Suzanne Barker (teacher, Grade 1A). This was at recess.

Cath told them that, at the start of the summer holiday, she had broken up with her boyfriend from last year. Lenny and Suzanne said, “Oh,” sadly, but Cath just laughed and said she couldn't even remember his name. Suzanne reminded her what the name was. “Thanks,” said Cath.

“I never thought he was right for you,” Suzanne offered. “You didn't have the aura of someone
truly loved.
”

“Thanks,” said Cath again.

Lenny told them she had been out to dinner with, guess who? And Cath said, “Who?” and Lenny said, “Guess,” etc. Then Lenny admitted it was
Frank Billson
(school principal).

Cath and Suzanne shrieked, and when Lenny ran to get her sandwich, they lowered their heads and said, “Oh my
God,
” and raised their eyebrows:
“What is she thinking?”
Lenny came back, and they straightened their faces and shoulders again.

Lenny asked Cath what the new guy, Warren Woodford, was like, and Cath was about to reply, but Suzanne interrupted to say she'd heard he studied
acting
before teaching.

And Cath found herself thinking,
Actually, Suzanne, the new guy belongs to ME.

Because
she
was the second-grade teacher.

On Wednesday, arriving home late after a K through 6 Values and Goals meeting, and tossing her keys and sunglasses onto the table, Cath caught a glimpse of her busy, thoughtful face reflected in the dining room window. She paused to consider the face. “You wouldn't know,” she said to the window, “that my heart was broken not so long ago.”

The heart had been broken by last year's boyfriend, despite what she'd said to Lenny and Suzanne. He had left her for a job in New Orleans. He brought the job to her place one evening; it was in a small, white envelope, and was very enthusiastic about the boyfriend's environmental science degree. “When do you leave?” she asked, making her voice as amazed and excited as his was.

“Next week!”

“And how long is it for?”

“Indefinite!”

He then spent the evening hunched over Cath's dining table, tracing scenic routes on a Louisiana road map with his thumbnail.

“Are you sure you can
see
in this light?” Cath had said coldly.

But he was too excited about the alligators, and only seemed to remember her at the airport. By then, of course, it was too late. His luggage was checked.

Could he really have broken your heart?
said Cath's reflection skeptically. But then she thought of the nights after he left, how she cried herself to sleep in her empty apartment, kicked the telephone across the room, mistreated the flowers that he sent from New Orleans (she left them to die in their wrapping), cut her hair short, and enrolled in a part-time law degree program. Whether or not he was worth it, he had certainly broken her heart. (He had added a
“Cheer up!”
note to his flowers from New Orleans.)

“But now,” she announced to her cat, Violin, as he twirled between her ankles, “I am recovered!” The bell on Violin's collar tinkled faintly.

She gazed at herself in the window, thinking of how good it was to be single. Just last night, for example, she had made chocolate chip cookies at midnight, to celebrate the start of the school year! And tonight, she planned to have grilled cheese on toast for dinner. And then watch MTV for as long as she liked. (Most boyfriends get restless and want to watch football instead.) And then go to bed and stay up late reading a novel.

Lovely!

And plus,
said the tiny, secret voice at the back of her mind,
I am sure to get a new boyfriend now that I feel this way! Whenever I get to the stage of happy, independent singlehood, THAT'S when I meet a new boy! It makes me ATTRACTIVE, being happy with JUST ME. I'm about to—

“HUSH,” she said firmly, and turned away from her reflection. Then she found that she was jittery and had to take a walk to the corner store.

On Thursday, Cath thought,
I like being single!
as she walked around the classroom, complimenting children on the pom-poms they were making.
I'm going to study law part-time!
Some of the children smiled back at her. A girl named Lucinda kept smiling for such a long time that Cath asked if she was all right. “No, because I'm not allowed to call the teacher that,” said Lucinda.

“Call the teacher what?” said Cath.

But Lucinda kept smiling, and shook her head, whispering to herself. Cath crouched down to hear what she was whispering.

“Ms. Murphy,” she was whispering.

“You're not allowed to call me Ms. Murphy?” said Cath.

Lucinda nodded, and her ponytail bounced.

“But Lucinda, that's my name!”

“I can't say M
zzz,
” explained Lucinda, and then shook her head wildly as if she had walked through a spiderweb. “Don't make me say that sound!
I can't say any word with that sound! That
zzz
…” She gasped, and shook her head again.

Luckily, at that moment, the girl beside Lucinda said, “Toilet brush, toilet brush, toilet brush.”

What was that child's name? Her name tag was on the floor.

“CASSIE KEEPS SAYING TOILET BRUSH!” shouted Marcus Ellison.

Cassie. That's right. Cassie Zing. She was that little sprinter who broke records at the athletics carnival last year. On the other hand, she had been five minutes late for school that morning. Her mother had written an apology note, which was polite of her.
In return,
thought Cath sternly,
I should remember her daughter's name!

But, to be fair, Cassie Zing's name tag was rarely on display, because she made dramatic speeches, waving her arms for emphasis and sweeping pencils and name tags to the floor.

“Toilet brush,” declared Cassie.

“That's enough, Cassie,” Cath said firmly.

Cassie looked up in surprise. “But I have to say it five hundred times!”

“Who said you have to?”

“I did.”

“Well then, tell yourself you don't have to.”

“Okay.” She nodded and went back to her pom-pom.

On Friday, Cath sat on a wooden bench, waiting for Warren Woodford. They were going to have a Grade Two curriculum meeting, but Cath had playground duty. So they would have it outside in the sun. She was swinging her knees to play her secret game in which she imagined she could lever herself up into the sky. She'd had a skiing accident as a teenager, and
they used metal joints to reconstruct her knee. Since then, she had thought of her knee as a magic levering hoist.

As she levered, she called, “Hey there!” crossly, to a boy who dumped a salad sandwich in the trash; “Ho there!” sternly, to a girl who pinched another girl's nose; and “Hey
now
” lovingly, to a boy who approached to show a grazed elbow. Once she had dealt with the elbow, she leaned back to get the big picture (mainly games of elastics today and loud conversations about a new computer pet called
Mr. Valerio,
which you fed by remote control), and to think.

It's great being single!
is what she thought. But something was bothering her, and she stopped swinging her knees to confront what it was.

That's what it was. The one thing she liked about having a boyfriend:
the relaxed atmosphere when you meet a new boy.
In conversations with boys who might become friends, Cath liked to joke around a bit, maybe even flirt, but she had found that boys grew wary, and found a way to mention
my girlfriend.
This left Cath feeling irritated, put in her place, and wanting to explain:
I'm not making a move, I'm just making friends.

It was much better when she had a boyfriend herself, so she could respond with
my boyfriend,
to redress the imbalance and get on with it. Or even better, say
my boyfriend
first.

“White, no sugar, yes?”

Warren Woodford's voice was behind her, and when she turned around, it was not just his voice, it was him. His left arm was pinning a bundle of folders awkwardly to his side, and his right hand stretched to hold two mugs of coffee, long fingers looped around the handles. He was staring ferociously at the coffee mugs, as if that would keep them from spilling.

He has noticed how I take my coffee!
Or maybe that's how people take their coffee, as a rule.

She helped him to sort out the papers and mugs, then he straddled the bench, and now it was strange, because she was facing forward, while
he
was looking at her shoulder. Like a setup for a photo shoot. Or like he was riding a horse the regular way, and she was riding it sidesaddle. His nose was quite long, and his mouth was a bit big for his chin.

“I hear you're studying law?” he said, as if he didn't care that his mouth was too big for his chin.

He has heard things about me!

“Not yet,” Cath explained. “I only just enrolled. The classes start next week.”

“Huh.” He nodded to himself, as if this was just as he'd imagined. “Why would you do that? Study law, I mean?”

“Something to do.” Cath shrugged.

“Something to do,” he repeated slowly. And then, in a chant: “Something to do; someone to sue; somewhere to queue.
Hmm.
Queue. Forgive me.”

He put down the mug and said, “This is terrible coffee. And another thing, I don't know if I'm going to be able to work with the principal here. What's his name? Billson. He seems a bit, I don't know, slow?”

“I think,” said Cath, “that he is brilliant.”

“Well,
brilliant,
yes, of course. Frank Billson, eh? A remarkable man.” He took a thoughtful sip from his coffee. “And this is
excellent
coffee.”

So far, in five days of school, and three brief chats on the second grade balcony, Warren had not said
my girlfriend
once. Cath appreciated that. Either Warren did not have a girlfriend, or he did not see the need to mention her. Either way, it was respectful of him.

Cath liked being single, but she wanted to make friends with this man, this Warren Wishful Woodford. (His eyes had a wistful, wishful look.) She wanted to make friends and to do that, she might have to flirt.

Tuesday morning, Fancy Zing dropped Cassie at school and came back to the smug, empty house. She sighed as she wandered its hallways. Its hall
way,
she corrected herself. There was only the one.

She changed back into her pajamas and sat at her desk with tea and honey-on-a-crumpet.

Irritating Things About My Husband # 2

During sex, he talks in this low, husky voice, which is nothing like his own. More like somebody hiding in the pantry and phoning the police while a robbery takes place.

He uses the voice to say things like “Do it to me, baby,” which is acceptable, though not to my taste. But he
also
uses it for ordinary things, such as “Just move your leg slightly, honey? That's pinching me?”

I am always clearing my throat during sex to indicate that he should clear his.

At fourteen, Fancy had worked part-time in a hardware store, and she still remembered fondly the counting down of change.

“Twenty dollars? Thanks. So, that's eleven, that's thirteen, that's fifteen, and
that's
twenty. Would you like a bag with that?”

“No thanks,” the men always said. But sometimes she gave them no choice, putting their screwdrivers straight into plastic bags. They never
used the handles when she did that, but grabbed the bag around the neck as if it were a hen.

Now she was a romance writer (although, of course, she was planning a prize-winning novel: Romance was her bread-and-butter knife; the novel would be her tomahawk). Specifically, Fancy wrote wilderness romances: stories set in remote locations such as the Guinean forests of Sierra Leone, or the shopping malls of South Dakota. The challenge was getting enough characters out there in the wilds to participate in the romance.

Wednesday night, Cassie found her parents in the TV room. She had just had a bath and was wearing her summer pajamas.

“Here's trouble!” This is what her dad said whenever Cassie walked into the room. Or even if she'd just gone to the bathroom at a restaurant and was coming back to the table. “Here's trouble!”

Where? Where was trouble?

What did her father mean?

Cassie sat on the carpet by the couch and crossed her legs so they'd forget that she was there.

Her mum had the remote control and was zipping through some recorded ads. Now she was zipping through the actual show. Did she mean to do that? She missed the end credits and zipped through a whole new program. Cassie sat quietly, pretending that nothing strange was happening.

“Well!” said her mum, finally noticing Cassie, and pressing
STOP
on the remote.

“No!” cried Cassie. “Don't say ‘
Well!
' like that! I don't like it when you say it that way!”

“How would you like me to say it?” asked Mum. “Well?
Well?
Well!!” She tried out different pronunciations. “You choose, Cass.”

“I don't want you to say it at all. It means you want me to go to bed.”

“Oh ho!” Her dad leaned forward on the couch. “Casso has clinophobia, has she?”

“What?”

He grinned at her. She stared back. Then she turned to her mum and explained: “Just say ‘well' in a way that doesn't sound so happy, okay?”

“All right, darling, say good night to your father.”

“My little clinophobic!” Her dad held out his arms for a hug.

“It's a fear of going to bed,” Radcliffe confided later, leaning into Fancy's study. “Clinophobia? A fear of going to bed.”

“I'm trying to work, Radcliffe,” Fancy said coldly.

Irritating Things About My Husband # 3

His family once owned a dog, a Rhodesian ridgeback, which they named Fancy, which is my name, and he cannot leave that coincidence alone.

Thursday morning, Fancy felt that there could be nothing wrong with driving your daughter to school in your pajamas. Also, nothing wrong with jumping out of the car on the way home to dump two garbage bags of secondhand clothes into the St. Vincent de Paul blue bin. Nothing wrong with that at all!

Except that the man next door was having breakfast on his porch as she emerged in her pajamas, shouting, “CASSIE! GET A MOVE ON! WE ARE
VERY, VERY
LATE,” spilling worn-out clothes from two garbage bags that were hopelessly clutched under her arms.

He was one of those dull Canadians, the man next door, the kind who speak slowly and with a mild, polite amusement about everything.

“Got your hands full there,” he declared from his porch, with his knife and fork poised over his bacon, and that little smirk of his. Their houses were very close.

“Yes!” Fancy agreed, and then she had to pause, for the sake of politeness, before shouting at Cassie again.

The neighbor returned to his bacon and pancakes, and Cassie emerged from the hallway with a comb and scrunchie hanging from her mouth, the car keys looped around her finger, her hair falling into her face, dragging an enormous garbage bag behind her.

“What on
earth
are you—Cassie, darling, that's the bag of books! We're not bringing that one.”

Cassie took the comb and scrunchie from her mouth. “Why not?”

“Darling, we're giving that one to the school fete, not to St. Vincent de Paul. But
thank
you, that must have been
very
heavy on the stairs.”

Cassie raised her eyebrows and turned to drag the bag back inside.

“No!” Fancy panicked. “Just leave it by the door there. No need to take it back upstairs.”

“Okay.”

“Have you got your lunch?”

“What is it?”

“It's peanut butter. On the second shelf of the fridge; run back in and get it, quick.”

“Peanut butter!”
shouted Cassie, and stamped her foot. She had loved peanut butter yesterday, but sometimes her taste took an unexpected swerve.

“In Newfoundland,” said the Canadian from his porch, “the kids swap lobster sandwiches for peanut butter.”

Cassie stared at him.

“Gosh!” Fancy said.

“That's how common lobster is,” confirmed the Canadian, “in Newfoundland.”

“Cassie,” Fancy said after an agonizing pause for politeness, “quick, honey, go and get your lunch.”

The news was starting its triumphant drumbeat as they pulled into the bus zone at Cassie's school. “Toilet brush, toilet brush, toilet brush,” said Cassie, counting on her fingers. She pointed at the radio. “The news is on.”

“Here.” Fancy craned into the rearview mirror, and brushed Cassie's hair behind her ears. “Pass me the pen from the glove box. I think I'd better write you a note.”

Dear Ms. Murphy,

Please excuse my daughter, Cassie Zing-Mereweather (better known as Cassie Zing—her choice!), for being late today.

I had to take some secondhand clothes to St. Vincent de Paul.

Yours sincerely and VERY best wishes,

Fancy Zing

Friday night, Radcliffe and Fancy drove to Fancy's parents' place for a Zing Family Secret Meeting. Cassie was in the backseat with the first week of Grade Two work piled around her.

“They are going to be
amazed
about this, aren't they, Mum?”

She leaned forward in her middle seat belt and waved a butterfly painting around in front of them, blocking Radcliffe's view of the road for a moment.

“They sure are!” agreed Fancy.

“For Christ's sakes!” snapped Radcliffe, at the same time.

This threw Cassie back into her seat belt for a moment. Then she recovered. “First I'm going to show my math workbook with the gold star,
then
my painting and—no,
wait
—”

“We must be just about due to have the Samsons and Bellamys for dinner, eh?” Radcliffe said to Fancy, tapping on the steering wheel. He had the habit of talking over Cassie when he found her boring.

“Yes,” she agreed. “But Cassie's birthday's coming up in a few weeks.”

“Well, then, sixth I'm going to sing and—did you say something about my birthday, Mum?”

“Hey, Cass-kid.” Radcliffe glanced in the rearview mirror at Cassie. “Let's hope you don't suffer from alektorophobia, eh?”

There was silence from the backseat for a moment. “Pardon?”

“Alektorophobia.”

“Is it something for my birthday?”

Radcliffe chuckled. He pulled up at a red light, and Cassie sat quietly, waiting.

“It's a fear of chickens,” Radcliffe explained to Fancy, in a low voice. “Alektorophobia. A fear of chickens. We'll probably have roast chicken for dinner tonight, eh?”

“Well, tell Cassie then! Cassie, don't worry about Dad, okay? He's being silly.”

“Leave it,” said Radcliffe, accelerating as the light turned green. “This is how she learns.”

“Learns what!”

Fancy had the strangest sensation. As if an antelope were nibbling her chin.

“Electra,” murmured Cassie from the backseat. “Alektro? Electro.”

Radcliffe turned on the radio.