Until I Find You (31 page)

Jack never met Emma’s dad. After every winter break from St. Hilda’s, Emma returned to school with a tan. Her father had taken her to the West Indies, or Mexico; that was virtually the only time they spent together. Emma also spent a month of every summer at a cottage in Georgian Bay, but most of that time she was in the care of a nanny or a housekeeper—her dad came to the cottage only on weekends. Emma never spoke of him.

That Mrs. Oastler thought Emma was too young to have her mustache waxed was a source of contention between mother and daughter. “It’s hardly noticeable,” Emma’s mom would tell her. “Besides, at your age, what does it matter?” And there were other issues between them, as one might expect of a divorced woman raising a “difficult” only child—a sixteen-year-old daughter who was physically bigger and stronger than her mother, and still growing.

Mrs. Oastler also thought that Emma was too young to have a tattoo—an intolerable hypocrisy, in Emma’s opinion, because her mom had recently been tattooed by Daughter Alice. This was news to Jack, but so was almost everything Emma told him. “What’s her tattoo? A tattoo
where
?” he asked.

Well, what a surprise! Emma’s mom had been tattooed to conceal a scar. “She had a Cesarean,” Emma said.
That old business again,
Jack thought. “It’s a scar from her C-section,” Emma told him. And to think he’d once believed this was the ward for difficult births in a hospital in Halifax! “She had a bikini cut,” Emma explained.

“A what?”

“A horizontal incision, not the vertical kind.”

“I still don’t get it,” Jack said.

This necessitated a trip to Mrs. Oastler’s bedroom. (Emma’s mother was out.) There Emma showed Jack a pair of her mom’s panties—black bikini briefs, no doubt a fetching match to the push-up bra. Mrs. Oastler’s scar was called a bikini cut because the incision was below the panty line of the briefs.

“Oh. And what’s the tattoo?”

“A stupid rose.”

Jack thought not. He was pretty sure he knew what kind of rose it was, in which case it would have been too big to be completely concealed under the panty line of Mrs. Oastler’s bikini briefs. “A Rose of Jericho?” he asked Emma.

It was, for once, her turn to be uninformed. “A Rose of
what
?”

This was not the easiest thing for a nine-year-old to explain. Jack made a fist. “It’s about this big, maybe a little bigger,” he began.

“Yes, it is,” Emma said. “Go on, Jack.”

“It’s a flower with the petals of
another
flower hidden inside it.”

“
What
other flower?”

There were so many words he’d heard and remembered—not that he understood them.
Labia
was one,
vagina
another—they were like flowers, weren’t they? And the other flower hidden in a Rose of Jericho was like the petals, or the labia, a
woman
had—a vagina concealed in a rose. Jack couldn’t imagine what a mess he made of this explanation to Emma, but of course Emma knew what he was
trying
to say.

“You must be kidding, Jack.”

“You have to know what you’re looking for in order to see it,” the boy said.

“Don’t tell me you know what a vagina looks like, honey pie.”

“Not an actual one,” Jack admitted. But he had seen a Rose of Jericho—many, in fact. He had examined the petals of
that
flower. He’d spotted “the lips” within the rose, as Ladies’ Man Madsen had called them—the oh-so-peculiar-but-discernible
something
that made a Rose of Jericho not quite like any other rose. “Maybe you haven’t looked closely enough,” he said to Emma, who seemed not herself—she was paralyzed with disbelief. “I mean at the
tattoo.
”

Emma took Jack by the hand and led him back to her bedroom. In her other hand, Emma was still holding her mom’s bikini briefs; it was as if Jack Burns were destined to bear to his grave the burden of a life-changing relationship with Mrs. Oastler’s underwear.

Emma’s bedroom was everything you would expect of that passage from childhood through puberty to concupiscence. The neglected teddy bears and other stuffed animals occupied positions of no particular importance on the king-size bed; there was a poster from a Beatles concert, and one from a Robert Redford movie. (It might have been
Jeremiah Johnson,
because Redford had a beard.) And everywhere, on the floor, on the bed—in one case, as if strangling a teddy bear—Emma’s bras and panties were flagrantly displayed. The underwear of a woman-in-progress, which Emma clearly was, indicated (albeit not to Jack) that Emma was in more of a hurry on her journey to womanhood than most girls her age.

In comparison, Jack was in no hurry on his journey to becoming a young man. He just happened to have met Emma Oastler, who knew his father’s story; despite the seven years between them, Emma was eager to see him catch up to her. “So you know what a vagina looks like,” Emma was saying, as she lay down among her discarded panties and bras and teddy bears.

“I know what one looks like in a Rose of Jericho,” Jack replied. She’d not let go of his hand. He had no choice but to lie down on the bed beside her.

“So a vagina is familiar to you—the labia, the whole business,” Emma was saying, as she lifted her short pleated skirt and wriggled out of her panties. Her mom’s bikini briefs could never have accommodated Emma’s hips. Consistent with the general sloppiness of dress (and undress) of the older girls at St. Hilda’s, Emma didn’t bother to take her panties entirely off; she kicked one leg free but left her panties dangling on one ankle, where their whiteness stood in contrast to her gray kneesocks, which were typically pushed down below midcalf, as if the socks were also indications of Emma’s preference for half-dress (or half-undress).

“You have big feet,” Jack observed.

“Forget the feet, Jack. You’re looking at your first vagina, and you’re telling me you’re not surprised?” The
hair
was again a surprise—though not nearly so much as when he’d first felt it, unseen. But the rest of the business—well, he was prepared for it to be complicated. The intricate folds (“the lips,” as Ladies’ Man Madsen had called them) were of a certain healthiness of pink that no tattoo pigment could imitate; yet this ornate door, for a vagina was clearly an opening, was recognizable from his mom’s Rose of Jericho, of which Jack had seen a hundred. Having seen Emma’s, he would have no trouble (in the future) finding that other flower in the rose, but for how many nine-year-old boys is it no big deal to see your first actual vagina? “Cat got your tongue, Jack?” Emma said.

“The hair’s different—there’s no hair on the tattoo,” he told her.

“You’re saying only the
hair
is special? You’re saying you’ve seen the rest of it?”

“It’s a Rose of Jericho,” Jack said. “I would recognize it anywhere.”

“It’s a
vagina,
honey pie!”

“But it’s also a Rose of Jericho,” he insisted. “You just need to take a closer look at your mom’s—at her
tattoo,
I mean.”

“Maybe the little guy has more of an interest in the real thing than you do, Jack.” Alas, the little guy did not look interested enough to merit Emma’s approval. “Jesus, baby cakes, I think there’s something wrong.” At nine going on ten, Jack simply wasn’t old enough. The unpredictability of his penis—aroused one minute, indifferent the next—wasn’t half as disappointing to him as it was to Emma. “Kiss me,” Emma demanded. “That sometimes works.”

Not this time. Jack would have admitted that the kiss was more aggressive than usual on Emma’s part, and that—notwithstanding how she’d criticized him for inserting his tongue in her mouth and wiggling it like a
worm—
the probing use she made of
her
tongue was beginning to get the little guy’s attention. But at the very moment his pinkie of a penis demonstrated a growing interest, which Emma might have called “promising,” he snagged his lower lip on a loose wire in Emma’s newly acquired braces. Before either of them noticed, Jack had bled all over Emma and himself
—and
her bed, several stuffed animals, and the aforementioned bra. (The one that appeared to be strangling a teddy bear.)

There was blood everywhere; more alarming, Emma and Jack were still attached. While Emma searched her messy bedroom for a hand mirror, they were clumsily—in Jack’s case, painfully—linked. His lower lip was hooked to her wired teeth. And the hand mirror, when Emma finally found it, offered a confusingly reversed view. They were caught in the act of failing to disengage his lip from her braces when Emma’s mom came home and skillfully, in a matter of seconds, separated them. “Maybe you
should
get your upper lip waxed, Emma,” Mrs. Oastler said.

Did he need
stitches
? Jack wanted to know. There was every bit as much blood as when Lucinda Fleming had attempted to eat herself. Dangerous kissing was not new to Jack Burns!

“It’s just a puncture wound,” Emma’s mom said, pinching his lower lip between her thumb and index finger. She didn’t seem to mind the blood. Jack recognized her perfume from his many nights with her push-up bra. Mrs. Oastler, the instant he remembered her stolen bra, spotted her black bikini briefs on Emma’s bloodstained bed. “I wish you’d play these games with your own underwear, Emma,” Mrs. Oastler said. By the evidence of Emma’s white panties with the lace waistband, which were still wrapped around Emma’s left ankle and draped over her left foot, it was clear that Emma and Jack
had
been playing a game with her underwear as well. But Mrs. Oastler took more of an interest in recovering her black bikini briefs. “You’re evidently a precocious boy, Jack,” Emma’s mom said.

“Jack knows all about tattoos,” Emma told her. “He knows all about
yours,
anyway.”

“Really? Is that true, Jack?” Mrs. Oastler asked.

“If it’s a Rose of Jericho, I know something about it,” he said.

“Go on—show him,” Emma told her mom.

“I’m sure Jack doesn’t need to see another Rose of Jericho. I’ll bet he’s already seen his share,” Mrs. Oastler said.

“Well, I’d like to take a closer look at it myself,” Emma told her mother. “Now that I know what it is.”

“Maybe later, Emma,” Mrs. Oastler said. “We can’t send Jack home all covered with blood.”

“You’ve got a
vagina
above your vagina, and you won’t let me get a butterfly on my
ankle
!” Emma screamed.

“Ankles hurt,” Jack offered. “Tattoos hurt where there’s nothing but bone.”

“It seems that Jack
does
know all about tattoos, Emma. You should listen to Jack.”

“I just want a
butterfly
!” Emma screamed.

“Here’s what we’re going to do, Jack,” Mrs. Oastler said, ignoring her daughter. “I’m going to take you to my bathroom, where you can wash up. Emma can wash up in her bathroom.” Emma’s mom took Jack’s hand and led him down the familiar path to her bedroom, which was connected to a large bathroom with wall-to-wall mirrors. In her other hand, Mrs. Oastler carried her black bikini briefs, which she twirled around and around her index finger. In the slight breeze made by her swinging panties, Jack became more aware of her perfume than before.

She removed his bloodstained shirt and tie and filled her bathroom sink with warm water; with a wet washcloth, she wiped his face and neck, being careful to gently pat his punctured lip, which was still bleeding, if only a little. While Jack washed the blood from his hands in the sink, Mrs. Oastler rubbed his shoulders with her cool, silky hands. There wasn’t any blood on Jack’s shoulders, but Emma’s mom seemed almost as comfortable touching him as her daughter was. “You’re going to be a strong boy, Jack—not very big, but strong.”

“Do you think so?” he asked.

“I know so,” Mrs. Oastler said. “I can tell.”

“Oh.” He realized why her hands felt so cool and silky. She was rubbing his back and shoulders with her black bikini briefs.

“You’re obviously very mature for your age,” Emma’s mom continued, “whereas Emma, although she’s a big girl, is somewhat
immature
in other areas. She’s not at all at ease with boys her own age, for example.”

“Oh,” Jack said again. He was drying his hands with a towel while Mrs. Oastler continued rubbing his back and shoulders with her panties. In the mirror, he could see her intense, serious face, framed by her pixie haircut.

“As for you, Jack, you seem quite comfortable around older girls and women.” He felt somewhat less comfortable when Emma’s mom ran her silky underwear over the back of his neck and placed her panties on his head, like a hat—like a curiously misshapen beret. His ears protruded from her bikini briefs, where her thighs would normally be. “What on earth will we tell your mom about your
lip
?” she asked. Before Jack could think of an answer, Mrs. Oastler said: “I get the feeling Alice isn’t quite ready for the idea of you kissing a sixteen-year-old.”

So his mom was “Alice” to Mrs. Oastler, which was only a mild surprise. He should have known. A Rose of Jericho is a fairly lengthy procedure, several hours under the best circumstances—and in this case, on such an intimate area of the body. Jack could easily imagine his mom and Mrs. Oastler having quite the conversation. Lying face-up on a bed or a table, for hours at a time, having a Rose of Jericho tattooed a few inches above your vagina—well, what subjects
wouldn’t
you feel free to discuss? People became fast friends in less than half the time it took to tattoo a Rose of Jericho. Alice had spent hours staring at Mrs. Oastler’s pubes; in such a situation, how could they
not
get to know each other? But while Alice had apparently gone along with Mrs. Oastler regarding Jack and Emma’s behavior, that he had cut his lip in a
kissing
accident might just nip Alice’s friendship with Mrs. Oastler in the bud. In any case, it made perfect sense to Jack not to tell his mother how he’d hurt himself kissing Emma.

“You could say it was a staple, Jack. I was trying to separate two pages of paper that had been stapled together, and you tried to help me. You opened the staple with your teeth.”