Way to Go (11 page)

“
Comme moi?
Very flattering, Danny. But you should know that there's a lot more to cooking than what we're doing here. It's a tough business, and there will be days, mark my words, when the look of food, even the most delicious food in the world, will make you sick.”

“I still feel like it could be the right thing for me.”

“Well, in that case, I'd be honored to help you any way I can.” He reached up to his neatly shelved row of cookbooks, pulled down a thick, serious-looking book and dropped it with a thud on the counter next to me. “You can start with this. Take it home and read it.”

The book,
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
, was dog-eared and had food stains on every page. Inside, I found hundreds of elaborate recipes that sounded as if they'd take days to make. I started reading it at home in the mornings before work, and on the beach with Lisa and the guys. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know, and my resolve to become a chef became stronger every day.

For the first time, I felt excited about my future. Cooking was the escape route I'd been looking for. JP had lived and worked all over the world. I could do that too. Deep Cove would be a place I just dropped into once in a while. My real life was somewhere else, waiting for me.

THE DAY MY DAD
flew home, Mom and Alma and I went to the airport to pick him up. He dropped his bags as he came out of the gate and picked my mom up off her feet, twirling her around. Then he put her down and gave her a huge kiss on the mouth.

“‘Fasten your seatbelts,'” Alma said to me. “‘It's gonna be a bumpy night.'”

Dad bent over and gave her a big bear hug and then reached out to give me a manly handshake.

“There he is,” he said. “The working man himself.”

“So is there any news with the contractor?” my mom asked him as we were driving home.

“What kind of news?” he asked.

“I don't know. Maybe there are some new opportunities coming up.”

He sighed, then forced a smile. “Do you know what, Mary? I just got home, and that's about the last thing I want to talk about right now.” My mom didn't say anything; she just smiled tensely and turned to look out the side window.

“What are you most excited to do now that you're home, Dad?” Alma asked him.

“Do you know what, Alma? I can't wait to just kick back and put my feet up.”

IT SEEMED LIKE
that's
all
he wanted to do. Usually when Dad came home from Alberta, he acted like he was making up for lost time. He'd start new building projects around the house, or bug me and Alma to go fishing with him. This time, though, he seemed content to sit on the deck and struggle with the crossword or just stare out at the garden for hours on end.

Weirdest of all, he didn't once bring up university with me. He asked me vague questions about my friends and took a quick look at my report card, but there was no sign of his usual obsession with my future.

One morning, a few days after he arrived, I came into the kitchen and found Mom standing at the counter. She was nursing a cup of tea and staring out the window at the back of Dad's head.

“Is it my imagination, or has he been acting strange?” she asked me.

“Totally strange,” I said. I remembered Lisa's story about her mom. Was that happening to Dad? “Do you think he's going crazy?” I asked her.

She laughed. “Crazy like a fox, maybe.” She rinsed out her cup and sighed. “Who knows. I think the whole Alberta thing is starting to get to him. I've never seen him this bothered about getting laid off. He doesn't want to talk about it at all.”

“It's not like this is the first time it's happened,” I said.

“Well, that might be the problem. The money's good out there, but it's a tough life. Tough on all of us, but especially on him. Why do you think he's always giving you advice about universities and stuff?”

“I guess so,” I said, “but he hasn't even tried to talk about that stuff with me since he got home. Not that I'm complaining.”

“Well, you never know. Maybe he's so frustrated about his own career that he isn't in the mood to talk to you about yours.”

It had never occurred to me that Dad ever got discouraged about anything. He always sounded so sure of how I should live my life that it came as a bit of a surprise to hear that he might be unhappy with his own.

I wanted to talk to Dad about my plan to go to culinary school. If he realized that I'd finally found my calling, it might cheer him up a little bit, but I needed to make sure he was in a good mood when I brought it up. I decided to wait for the perfect opportunity.

As it turned out, Mom had her own plans to cheer Dad up. On my next day off, she announced that we were going to have a family night. She and Alma drove into town and came home with a pizza and a bunch of chips and chocolate bars. We ate supper in the living room and watched
Vertigo
—Alma's suggestion. I looked over at Mom and Dad sitting on the couch with their arms around each other, and at Alma, sitting cross-legged on the floor, her eyes glued to the tv. They all looked so content, it made me sad to think that I might never have children of my own. That I'd have to hide the real me from the people who knew me best.

I knew my days in Deep Cove were numbered. Now that I had a plan, I told myself that if I could just make it through one more school year, if I could just keep pretending to be someone I wasn't, then I could move away for cooking school and start living my life. Maybe in Montreal I could finally be myself.

FIFTEEN

“I think I'm in love with her,” said Kierce.

I looked over at him, and I could tell from the bizarre dreamy look on his face that he was telling the truth. Or at least what he thought was the truth.

We were in his van, wishing there was something more fun to do than just cruise the strip. Tonight was the first time since he and Lisa had hooked up that it was just me and the guys hanging out. Lisa had rushed away after work, saying something about having promised to spend the evening with her aunt.

“Bullshit,” said Jay. “You just love getting laid.”

“No way, man. When you know, you know.”

“What happened to the rules?” I asked him. “You know, Rule Forty-five: Love 'em and leave 'em. Or Rule Eighty-one: Women—can't live with 'em, can't live with 'em.”

He waved his hand at me, brushing away my comments. “You guys haven't experienced the joys of true love. When you do, you'll understand that there's really only one Golden Rule: All you need is love.”

“Excuse me,” said Jay. “I'm gonna go barf for a few minutes.”

The Lisa and Kierce thing hadn't been as big a deal as I'd thought it would be. Instead of disappearing into some kind of couple's bubble, they spent most of their time with me and Jay. I was happy to be hanging out with the guys again, but I worried Kierce was setting himself up for a big disappointment. “A summer fling.” That's what Lisa had called it. That definitely didn't line up with all his love talk.

“What makes you think you're in love?” I asked him. “You've only been dating for a couple of weeks.”

“You just know, Dan. It's a feeling you get when your heart and your wang are in perfect harmony.”

“Lovely,” I said.

“Oh yeah!” said Jay. “That reminds me! I was at the Spot yesterday, and you horndogs are so busted!”

“What do you mean?” asked Kierce.

“Don't play dumb,” said Jay. “You forgot to remove the evidence.”

Kierce gave him a blank look. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“The condom wrapper? You forgot to remove your garbage after your love session.”

“Gross,” I said.

“No way,” said Kierce. “We never did it at the Spot. We haven't even gone back there since the night our true love first bloomed.”

“I guess it was just a matter of time before someone found the place,” said Jay.

“Yeah,” I said, “but it's pretty disgusting to think about people doing it at the Spot.”

“I don't think it's disgusting,” said Kierce. “I think it's awesome. I wish I'd thought of it first.”

LISA BREEZED INTO
the kitchen the next day and rummaged around in her purse before thrusting a piece of paper at me. “Look!” she said.

I unfolded the paper, which had obviously been ripped from a telephone pole.

WONDERFUL WALLBURN'S ROLLING CARNIVAL
Rides! Games! Concessions! August 11–13

“It'll be fun!” she said. “Something to do besides driving in circles.”

It wasn't exactly my idea of a good time. Every summer for as long as I could remember, Wallburn's Carnival had set up in a field outside of town. It was a rip-off, but Lisa had a point—it could be fun to do something different.

“I'M NOT A BIG FAN
of these things,” said Kierce a couple of nights later as we tried to find a place to park in the field. “Everyone knows carnies are a bunch of queers. I don't like having to walk around watching my back.”

Lisa turned and looked at him with her mouth hanging open.

“Are you kidding me? Queers? What is this, the Middle Ages?”

“Who cares? I don't like fruits. Or—what?—am I supposed to say ‘homosexuals'?” he asked. “What's the big deal?”

“Big deal? Oh, I don't know, except that some of my best friends are gay. Not to mention Denise.”

My heart skipped a beat. Denise was gay? I remembered what my mom had said about Denise leaving Deep Cove because of gossip, and not getting along with her parents. Why on earth had she moved back to Deep Cove?

The four of us got out of the van in an uncomfortable silence and paid for tickets at the front gate. Kierce tried to pay for Lisa, but she shot him the evil eye. “Not a chance, hillbilly.”

The carnival was pretty crappy: a few rusted-out rides and a row of games with cheap prizes hanging on pegboards behind them. Almost right away, we ran into Maisie and her friend Diana.

“Oh my god, I'm so excited to see you guys!” Maisie said. She looked right at me and smiled broadly. “I was hoping you'd be here!”

“Come on,” said Lisa, grabbing me by the hand and pulling me away into the crowd.

“What's going on?” I asked, glancing back over my shoulder and shrugging apologetically at Maisie.

“I need to get away from Kierce for a few minutes, before I hit him or something.”

She dragged me into the lineup for the Ferris wheel, and a scruffy guy in his early twenties with bloodshot eyes grabbed our tickets and snapped us into a seat. I wondered if it was true what Kierce said about carnies being gay. I discreetly checked the guy out and decided that running away to join the circus probably wasn't the thing for me. A few minutes later we lifted off. As the ride lurched into the air, its tinny music competed with the unsettling sound of metal grinding against metal. I did my best to ignore it.

“He's driving me crazy,” Lisa said, pointing down into the crowd. I looked and saw Maisie cheerfully talking Jay's ear off as they boarded the Whirl-A-Gig. They were followed closely by Diana and Kierce, who looked miserable.

“Wow, you sure are in a crappy mood, aren't you?” I said.

“I know, I know.” She looked at me and forced a smile to her face. “Things at home totally suck. My mom is coming to stay with me at Cheryl's house.”

“No way!” I said.

“Yeah, well, what can you do? Anyway, every time she calls, she talks about how excited she is to come spend the rest of the summer with me, and if I'm not totally enthusiastic about it, she pulls a major guilt trip. Now, to top it all off, Kierce is turning out to be such an asshole.”

“He's not really, he just says stupid crap.” I didn't know why I was defending him. I hated the stuff he said as much as she did.

“It's not even that,” she said. “I'm just finding him really annoying. He wants to spend every free minute with me. It's getting old fast.”

“Why don't you end it then?” I asked her.

“Too much effort. Besides, he's not
totally
useless, if you catch my drift.”

“Okay, great, too much information,” I said. It wasn't fair for her to string him along like that, but I figured that part of it had to be his own fault. Besides, I couldn't help feeling a bit of mean-spirited satisfaction that things weren't working out for him the way he wanted them to. Maybe it would be good for Kierce to realize that the world didn't always play by his rules.

When we met up with the group again, he immediately apologized to Lisa.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I don't know why I had to shoot my mouth off like that.”

“He really is sorry,” said Maisie. “He talked about it the whole time we were on the ride.”

“Don't worry about it,” said Lisa, not bothering to look him in the eye. She still sounded pissed off, but by the time we'd all grabbed something to eat from the concession stand and found an empty picnic table, she had returned to her old self. When she told us a funny story about getting stuck in a changing room at Macy's department store, Kierce laughed harder than the rest of us put together.

Eventually, we decided to call it a night. “So I'll see you at work tomorrow, right?” Maisie asked me as I got into Kierce's van.

“You got it,” I replied.

“Awesome!” she said. “I'll see you there. Bye, guys!” She hurried away to her own car, Diana close behind.

As soon as we were on the road, Jay reached over and poked me in the arm, repeatedly. “Oooooh, Danny Boy, looks like you might finish up this summer with a bang after all.”

“Quit it!” I swatted him away. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Oh, come on, Danno,” said Kierce, rolling his eyes at me in the rearview mirror. “She's obviously into you.” Lisa and Jay both nodded.