Under the Dusty Moon (13 page)

A
nd
then a week later it was my birthday. Seventeen. Mom insisted that I set my alarm so we could finally have our belated
video-chat
first thing when I woke up, and I was more than a bit relieved when she popped up on the laptop's screen wearing a party hat and blowing a
noise-maker
in my honour.

“Happy birthday!” she yelled, her movements slowed just a bit by the lag in Gran's Internet connection. She was pixelated, too, I guess because Mom's
Wi-fi
was so weak. She looked like she could have been an anachronistic character from
Lore of Ages II
.

Mom looked happy, but exhausted. She had those dark bags under her eyes that she gets when she hasn't been sleeping enough — visible even in her
slow-mo
pixelated form — and her hair was even wilder than usual, shooting off in a dozen different frizzy directions.

“Hey, Mom!” I said, waving. “Thanks.”

She kept blowing her
noise-maker
and yelling “Happy birthday!” and “Seventeen!” and “Whoop, whoop, whoop!” for another full minute before she let either of us finish a proper sentence.

“So how's it going?” she finally said, when she was out of breath from all her merriment. “You giving your gran a hard time or what?”

“Try the other way around,” I said. “When she's home, anyway.”

“Ah well, that's just her way,” Mom said. “But what are you guys doing today? You going to go out for dinner?”

“Not sure,” I said, “she hasn't mentioned anything. I'd rather just do my own thing, to be honest.”

“But it's your birthday!”

“Yeah, and Gran's not exactly the one I want to spend it with,” I said pointedly.

“What about Lucy?” Mom asked.

“She's stuck up in Richmond Hill babysitting her cousins.”

“I'm sure she'd love some company,” Mom said. And she was probably right. I'd already ignored two texts from Lucy telling me how bored she was. It wasn't that I didn't want to talk to her, but she kept messaging me when I was out with Shaun and I couldn't text her back.

“Yeah,” I said, “but I kind of had something else in mind.”

“This is about Shaun, isn't it?” Mom asked, totally missing the point.

“It is not,” I said. “I haven't even — I don't even …”

“How many times have you guys hung out?” Mom asked.

“A few,” I admitted.

We'd been out again since our park/record store/band name game date. We went and saw an old Hitchcock movie they were playing in Bellwoods on a giant inflatable screen. We'd smoked up before it started and the birds that kept killing people in the movie seriously freaked me out, so Shaun kept me distracted by kissing me, first my hand and my neck, but pretty soon we were
full-on
making out on the grass. Or at least we were until a couple behind us told us to get a room — who even says that anymore? — and I was so paranoid that they'd figured out we were stoned that I told Shaun we had to stop. I confessed that I was a bit of a lightweight as Shaun walked me back to the bus stop afterwards, but he just laughed. “Yeah,” he'd said, “I kind of figured.”

“Sooooo …” Mom said, “is he taking you out for your birthday?”

“God, Mom, I don't know. Just quit it, okay?”

“Fine, whatever,” she said flippantly. “But I'm going to want some details later.”

“So how's the tour?” I asked, forcefully changing the subject. “Where are you guys now?”

“Kyoto,” Mom said. “We had the day off today, but we'll be playing here tomorrow night, at a place called Urbanguild.”

“That's cool,” I said. “So what'd you do today?”

“Ken and I did the whole tourist thing. We went to this temple,
Ginkaku-ji
, I think it's called. Gorgeous. So tranquil, you know?”

“Yeah, I guess.” The leech again. Was she spending all of her time with him, or what? “So I guess you really love Japan, huh?”

“Oh, honey, it's great. I've really got to take you here sometime. It's amazing, but it's really kind of overwhelming sometimes. You know, like, everything is strange, just a little bit different from home. The people, the traffic, the music we hear — there's some amazing music here. And the crowds we've had have just been loving our tunes.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. But it's funny. Being here now with the band — you know, the new band, or newish, anyway — it just kind of makes me wish that Dusty Moon had been able to play these shows. It would've been really cool to have done this when we were young. We never made it to Asia.”

“Are you thinking about Dennis?” I asked. Was I trying to throw a dart through the love balloon she clearly had forming for the leech? Yeah, I admitted to myself, I probably was.

“Yeah,” she said, “I am. Seeing crowds like this makes me miss him a lot. I wish he was here to see this.”

But I didn't want the answer I was looking for once I had it. Mom looked a bit misty and faraway over her webcam, but maybe that was just the exhaustion.

And then the screen froze up. It was a sad sort of
freeze-frame
that almost made me feel sorry for her, stuck and lonesome, even though she was the one out having adventures.

“Mom,” I said, “you're cutting out. You're frozen. I can't hear you.”

The screen stayed stuck a minute or two longer and then the call was cut off.

I tried redialling her, but it wouldn't let me connect again. It was hard to know what to think of Mom's news. It was great that things were going so well, but it was weird, too. I was too young to remember it back when Dusty Moon was famous, so I've never really known my mom as a big rock star. Was that what she was turning into again?

I went downstairs, still in my pajamas — a giant
thrift-store
T-shirt
with a picture of a cat on the beach and a pair of blue plaid boxers — fully anticipating that Gran would have already left for the day. However it was she spent her days, I had no clue. She was mostly retired, but always seemed to be on her way to a meeting or a conference or something. Or maybe she was just trying to avoid me. In any case, it was pretty surprising to see her actually puttering around the kitchen like she was a normal grandmother who was busy doing something incredibly typical. Like making me a birthday cake?

“You're finally up,” she said, as I came into the kitchen.

“Morning,” I said. “I was just
video-chatting
with Mom. You know, for my —”

“Yes,” Gran interrupted, “how is she? She's barely able to make time for a phone call.”

“Yeah, you know. I mean, she's busy,” I said. “She's really busy. She's in, uh, Kyoto, I think she said? Sounds like the tour's going really well. People are really getting into the music.”

“I'd hope they would if she's going to fly all that way to play it for them.”

“
Uh-huh
,” I said, nodding as I scanned the kitchen counter for a present, or even a card, that I might have missed. Maybe I just hadn't given her the right opening to wish me a happy birthday? “So …”

“So,” Gran said, “what are your plans for the day?”

“Well …” I paused, sure she'd catch herself. But then the pause went on for too long and I felt like a moron. “I mean … it's my birthday.”

“Of course it is,” she said. “You didn't think I could forget that, did you?”

“Oh,” I said, stalling further, waiting for an uncharacteristic hug or even some impersonal present like a GAP gift card.

“Yes,” she said, touching my arm. “Happy birthday. You're how old now?”

“Seventeen,” I said, slumping my shoulders. Gran took her hand away. There was no hug here. No gift card. Probably not even a stupid birthday card.

“Ah, yes,” she said. “You're growing up. And I'd be happy to make you a birthday dinner here tonight if you'd like. You could invite a friend.”

And it wasn't like I was some spoiled
reality-TV
-show brat, but Gran's pathetic offer to heat up some frozen fish for me and one friend — Lucy was still babysitting in Richmond Hill, and there was no way she'd even let Shaun into the house — was the total opposite of how I'd pictured my birthday.

“No thanks,” I said, “I've got other plans.”

I was shocked to see Gran look disappointed that I'd turned down her offer. The corners of her mouth fell, but she nodded her head.

“Fine,” she said. “So where are you planning to have dinner tonight?”

“My friend Lucy invited me,” I heard myself say, “for a sleepover.”

“And it's all right with her parents?”

“Yeah, Gran, it's fine,” I said. “It's, like, a birthday sleepover. We did one for Lucy's birthday too, back in February.”

“And your mother knows about this?”

God, I was going to get caught in a lie for sure. Fortunately, Mom was probably already off doing shots and singing karaoke with the leech, and there was no way Gran could get ahold of her before tonight, tomorrow morning
her-time
.

“Yeah,” I said, “it's fine. We do it a lot. It's no big deal.”

“Okay,” she said. “But be back early tomorrow. I don't want you to overstay your welcome.”

“Fine, whatever,” I said, grabbing a banana from the fruit bowl on the counter — which sat next to the bowl of wax fruit, Gran seriously had no idea how to decorate — and went back up to the spare room. I threw some stuff into my bag, and then headed for the door, texting Shaun before I'd even reached the end of the block.

I'm coming over. OK?

By the time I'd hit the bank so that I actually had subway fare to get back downtown, Shaun had replied.

My parents are going out tonight. Come over after 8. They'll be home late.

I was bummed that he didn't want to spend the day together. Eight o'clock felt like it was days away, but his message sent a shock through my body and I broke out in
all-over
goosebumps. This was it. This was what I wanted. I was going over to Shaun's. I'd convince him to let me stay over — something told me that it wouldn't be too hard — and we'd, well, do it. That was what Shaun did with girls, he'd been with enough of them. And I wanted to. With him.

It was totally fine. It made sense. I really liked him and it was my birthday.

My seventeenth birthday.

My seventeenth freaking birthday with my mom on the other side of the world, and Lucy stuck in the suburbs babysitting while I was being babysat by Gran, who didn't even give enough of a crap about my special day to buy me a
grocery-store
birthday cake with pink frosting.

Yup, this is it
, I told myself as I pushed through the turnstile at the subway station. I'm going to sleep with Shaun. No, not “sleep with” — how old was I, Mom's age? — I was going to have sex with Shaun. For sure. I mean, he was practically my boyfriend now anyway.

God
, I thought, as I boarded the train.
Was he my boyfriend?
It was kind of hard to tell. We'd hung out a few times, and we'd made out a whole bunch, sure, but was he my boyfriend? Then I had a worse thought: was he hanging out, and making out, with other girls, too? It was at least a possibility, and the thought of it made my stomach squeeze itself tight like it was trying to turn the sad banana I'd had for breakfast into a diamond.

I decided to head to the Eaton Centre downtown, and in between the
people-watching
and the consolation birthday shopping I did — including some new underwear that I immediately changed into in the mall's food court bathroom — I managed to keep myself distracted, even if it was a pretty pathetic way to spend the day.

I parked myself near the fountain in the middle of the mall for almost an hour and drew weird little
left-handed
portraits of the people around me in a new sketchbook I'd decided was a birthday necessity. Once I gave in to how childish my
left-hand
drawing was, it was actually kind of fun to see how distorted my portraits came out — how grotesque they made the pretty people around me look. And for once it didn't feel like I was doing it wrong, or that my art wasn't good enough — I was just enjoying drawing. For the first time, I realized, in a while.

When I got tired of the mall, I crossed Dundas Square and went to the movie theatre across the street. I'd never gone to a movie by myself before, but I figured that I didn't have much choice since I still had a few hours to kill before I could head over to Shaun's place. I got a ticket to
Pure Joy
, a horror movie Shaun was obsessed with about a summer camp run by a cult, and bought myself a giant bag of popcorn, a bucket of Coke, and a pack of Junior Mints. I figured that if no one else was going to buy me a birthday dinner that I'd just have to be my own date.

The movie was freaky but so good, and my popcorn/Junior Mint/Coke dinner was about the best meal I'd ever eaten, mostly because I was so hungry. When the credits finally rolled, and I dug my nails out of the armrests, I checked my phone and realized that it was close to eight. Time to head over to Shaun's.

I walked down to Queen to catch the streetcar and grabbed a single seat by the window. My nerves, which I thought I'd managed to completely exorcise with my day of distraction, came back in full force as I watched Queen Street whip by. As we got closer to Lansdowne Avenue, Shaun's stop, I was convinced that I'd somehow pissed myself, I was sweating so hard — everywhere, but especially between my legs. Who knew that you could even sweat there? I was mortified, and made a note to make sure that I cleaned myself up in Shaun's bathroom before letting him get close.