After school some days I found my way to Birdie’s apartment to watch the comings and goings from behind a cedar bush on the opposite side of the street. I wanted to see if she was showing yet – make sure she was safe and maybe even catch the sugar daddy creep who’d screwed up her reasoning until she couldn’t think straight. Sometimes I brought a book with me.
One hot May afternoon when the sky was so blue I wanted to fly right up among the clouds, I cut school early and went to Birdie’s.
I was sprawled out on my hoodie in the clearing behind the cedar bush reading Zola’s L’Assommoir. I was totally blown away that someone in another country, living in a distant century, could capture the abject misery and squalor that addiction brings. I threw myself, full tilt, into a Zola phase. I vowed to work my way through every book he’d written. They made me feel I wasn’t alone in my misery. That other human beings had lived lives of endless suffering and Zola recorded it all in graphic detail.
A car pulled up and stopped outside the block. I flipped the book shut and craned my neck to see. I’d already watched a stream of people come and go but I had a gut feeling this one was for Birdie. Something about the way the car, a prowling BMW with tinted windows, purred to a gradual stop then sat there, its motor throbbing like a heartbeat. When the door finally swung open, a man with sleek reddish-brown hair, shiny cheeks and wearing a sharp navy suit hoisted himself out. He straightened his shoulders, adjusted his shades and checked around him like he didn’t want to be seen in that dumpy street.
He slammed the door shut and with a quick glance both ways, hopped up the steps and pressed the buzzer. The pink curtains on Birdie’s window parted for a moment revealing the pale flash of her face. Bingo, this was my guy. I heard the faint twitter of her voice over the intercom and then he was inside. My cue to check the car out and maybe key its brilliant black flanks. Carve out in crooked letters, I am a sick pedophile. My hand itched to get started.
I waited a few moments then picked up my hoodie, now dusted with dry grass and leaves. The air was stifling, heat shimmered like a curtain. But I still pulled my arms into the sleeves and flipped the hood over my curls, then shoved my hands into the pockets to touch the rough edge of my locker key. Sidling up to the car, I checked out the street. It was quiet enough. The busy cross street was way up ahead and late afternoon traffic din would drown out the screech of my key on the paintwork. I placed both hands on the smooth flank of the car, still warm from the journey across town. He must’ve really gunned it in his haste to get to his naughty little schoolgirl, led by the forbidden urges that scrambled his brain and coursed like a fever through his flabby, middle-aged body.
The key was out in the open now, its sharp edges poised above the slick shellac of the paintwork. I breathed deeply, almost afraid to defile its beauty. After all, I too lusted after something this gorgeous. I rubbed the sharp tip on the rear panel just enough to hear a scraping sound so high-pitched my teeth ached. A sudden swish made me jump backwards and shove the key back in my pocket.
“What do you think you’re doing?” said a clear young voice from the passenger window. “I’m calling the cops.”
I spun round, prepared to escape down the street and over the bridge when the door snapped open.
“I saw you,” said the voice. “I’ll call my dad. He’ll report you. You’ll go to jail.”
I was looking at a tall young guy about my age – wearing a navy school blazer with a crest. A rich snob with rosy hairless cheeks and a snow-white shirt. Did he know what his creep of a father was up to? What fake line had he given this kid to get him to wait like an idiot in the car?
“Your dad is a freakin’ john who diddles underage girls,” I screamed from the other side of the street. “Tell that to the cops.”
His face fell. The hand holding the cell phone dropped to his side. “Say what? Come back and say that to my face,” he screamed, his new man’s voice cracking into a girlish shriek. I glanced upwards to see the pink curtains shift and his father’s face look out onto the street. Who’d harassed his precious, shiny son? But I’d disturbed his sleazy session with Birdie and I hoped to hell he wouldn’t take it out on her.
“I said come back,” the boy shrieked again. So I gave him the finger and ran down the street, my hair flying out behind me, my body drenched with sweat under the hoodie. Away from that car and away from the poor little rich kid with the sicko dad.
35
I’d never set foot inside the baby store at the mall with its pale blue sign above the window and the rows of sleepers, dresses and pants so tiny they’d fit Esther Penner’s perfect dolls.
I ran my fingers across display cases of baby booties and smiley-face bibs and hairbands for bald baby heads. I’d neglected to ask if Baby Metcalf was a he or she, but yellow or mint green would work for either sex so I loaded up my cart with one of everything in those colors.
Moms with strollers and Dads carrying babies in snugglies milled around the aisles laughing and chatting. Pastel colored posters of smiling cherubs beamed down on me, reminding me of Birdie’s broken dreams.
Shoving my purchases towards the pink-cheeked sales clerk with the blonde ponytail and unicorn-covered smock, I paid cash. Threw
