Flannery Read online

  The Snow Queen. Tyrone has been doing a series of angry Snow Queens all fall, but this is the most extravagant thing I’ve ever seen him do. It runs the length of a whole block.

  This Snow Queen is mostly silver and aquamarine and her hair flies around her head in silver tendrils and she has high comic-book cheekbones and a kind of silver bodice of scales and a flowing cape. There’s a team of horses and flashes of lightning and a dragon covered in silver scales just like the ones on the Snow Queen’s bodice.

  All of this appears out of the dark in the few seconds it takes the car headlights to pass over the plywood wall, and at the very end of the wall, shaking a can of spray paint, is Tyrone O’Rourke. I see him, and then I think I can hear the ball bearings in the can doing their mad dance as he shakes it.

  Hey, I call out. I do some jumping jacks, crisscrossing my arms over my head. Hey, hey, I’m yelling.

  His arm is raised with the paint can. He’s spraying in the Snow Queen’s left nostril.

  Another car goes past, and another. His shadow stretches up high and sinks back down, the stallions rear, the whites of their eyes show, the dragon’s claws sparkle. The mural is like a living thing, teeming with action and life.

  Now a car slows on my side of the road and pulls to a stop beside me. Its engine is idling. Two burly men sit inside, one with a shiny film of short gray hair that glows in the streetlight. The other man has a black moustache and is so tall his head touches the roof of the car.

  I freeze, mid-jumping jack.

  The men are staring at me. What do they see? A sixteen-year-old freckled, buxom, near frostbitten, gangly kid doing jumping jacks in a desolate part of downtown, and she’s jumping up and down to gain the attention of … ? Who?

  Their heads both turn in unison to look across the street and they spot the graffiti.

  Tyrone is making the Snow Queen’s nostril flare just like Miranda’s, actually, when she’s cleaning the fridge and she finds a package of liquefied asparagus. It’s liquefied because who has time to clean out the fridge when you’re busy carving life-sized polar bears out of ice to protest global warming?

  Or like when the pipes freeze and she has to go down in the basement with a blowtorch.

  In those moments, Miranda’s nostrils do their thing. They go flat and wide and quiver with flibbertigibbet determination.

  Speaking of mothers, Tyrone’s spray-painted Snow Queen looks a lot like his own mother, in fact, except that so far the Snow Queen has only one perfectly flared nostril instead of two.

  I hear Tyrone shake the paint can again. The wind has died down a little and I really can hear it from all the way across the four lanes, a traffic island and a few skinny trees. I can even hear the hiss, the spraying of silver.

  The one nostril makes the Snow Queen look like she has been waiting for that other nostril all her life. A lot is on the line for her. Her eyes are nearly bulging out from her dramatic cheekbones.

  Tyrone is wearing a black hoodie and black jeans and a mask — like a gas mask, so he doesn’t breathe in the fumes, and goggles, so the paint doesn’t get in his eyes. He looks like E.T. or a cricket.

  The silver-haired man on the passenger side of the car reaches down around his feet for something and slaps a siren on the dash and it whoop-whoops and throws out an arm of red light and blue light and they screech away to pull a U-ey farther up the road.

  I yell, Run, it’s the cops. Run!

  Tyrone turns and sees me and sees the cops and he bends and sweeps up his knapsack full of paint cans and takes off around the corner of the construction site.

  They saw him because of me.

  Because I was jumping around and waving like an idiot. It’s my fault.

  Behind the construction site there’s the Waterford River and Symes Bridge. Tyrone’s already sprinting over the bridge by the time the cops get their car pulled around the traffic island that divides the road. Now Tyrone is racing up through the forest on the Southside Hills, and I keep losing sight of him, but then I can see the tree branches swaying all their orange leaves as he climbs along the overgrown path that leads through the woods.

  The cop car has skidded to a stop on the other side of the road and they’ve jumped out of the car and they’re on foot, running up the same path behind the construction site. They’re closing the distance between themselves and Tyrone pretty fast.

  Then there’s an engine revving up. I see the fan of a single headlight blinking as it passes through the tree trunks.

  He’s got his motorcycle! After a moment the cops come running back down around the building site and they get in the car and pull another U-ey, the siren going, and they’re heading up to the Southside Hills.

  The siren is very loud and high-pitched and it fades away. I stand there waiting, but there’s nothing else to see.

  The Snow Queen glares down at me from across the street. She’s all haughty jaw and smolder. Sharp angles. She manages to look malevolent and smug, even though she still has the one-nostril problem.

  All of Tyrone’s Snow Queens are voluptuous and this is a comfort to me. If I’m not mistaken, Tyrone’s queen wears a doubleD.

  10

  A text from Amber! She wants me to walk to the Arts and Culture Centre with her after school. She has received permission to borrow from the costume bank for Gary’s music video. They’re only open until five and she really has to pick out a lot of stuff.

  She really, really needs my help.

  They’re thinking ten female dancers in the video and fifteen male dancers and of course the whole band. And, most important, Gary, because he’s the lead singer.

  I have to meet her on the front steps of the school as soon as the buzzer goes. Melody can’t make it. She has detention. Gary has basketball practice but he’ll show up as soon as he can.

  Oh thank God, Amber says when she sees me coming down the stairs.

  We really have to hurry, she says.

  I have to work hard to keep up with her all the way down the sidewalk, past Brother Rice and the Lions Club and the university residences on Allandale Road and across the lawn of the Arts and Culture Centre which is covered in orange and yellow leaves.

  Amber talks the whole way, hardly stopping to breathe.

  Gary says this. Gary says that.

  Gary’s mom brings them down a tray with two glasses of lime crush and a bowl of barbecue chips every day and they have to listen for the door to the basement opening at the top of the stairs if they’re making out.

  Gary’s basement is renovated and he lives down there and there’s a little bar and flatscreen TV and Gary’s little brother is really cute and Gary’s Pomeranian is just like a little mop.

  Monique, Gary’s Pomeranian, really loves Amber. Monique licks her ankle and her little tongue is like sandpaper.

  Gary’s Pomeranian tickles. Amber tells Gary, Your dog is tickling my ankle, but what can Gary do about it?

  And it’s hypoallergenic and doesn’t shed and Gary wants them to get matching tattoos (Gary and Amber, not Gary and the Pomeranian), and Gary’s band is playing an all-ages show on the weekend. Gary can’t see her on Tuesdays or Thursdays or Fridays, because of the band.

  And the video for their unit is going to be really wicked, Flannery. They’re renting a limousine and the band is going to climb out of the limo and there are fireworks all around it, except for Gary, who stays in the limo but his window goes down and there he is with a cigar and a fedora and sunglasses and then the window goes back up. Gary thought of that part.

  Amber is going to shoot it with Gary’s new GoPro camera. Gary put the GoPro camera on Monique and got some really deadly shots. Gary rode his mountain bike down the Signal Hill trail and some old grandmother got mad because he was coming down the stairs and her grandkid was going up and Gary knew he wasn’t going to hit the kid but they ruined his GoPro shot. And the grandmother was yelling and shaking her fist and Gary said it was really funny, this little old lady, her bifocals crooked, her gums fl
apping. You should see Gary on that mountain bike though, he can really go.

  Gary says Amber could lose a pound or two, like, just here, on her hips? And she would look, you know, skinnier. It wouldn’t surprise Amber if Gary’s band gets really big. Gary says that there’s a label that’s been in touch because they saw an all-ages Gary and the band did and the guy was really nice. The guy said Gary really has something. The guy wants to see the video when it’s finished, which is part of the reason they really need good costumes.

  Gary wants her to get a tattoo with the name of his band on it. The Squalls. In a heart. With an arrow piercing it. Like, just a pound or two because Gary says she’s starting to fatten up.

  Gary doesn’t like it when she talks to other guys because he’s really sensitive and shy and it just makes him feel uncomfortable and most guys are jerks. And nobody understands Gary because he’s really talented and sensitive.

  Without Gary that band would just fall apart.

  Gary listens to really cool music. It isn’t true that Gary wouldn’t let her dance with Tony Heffernan at the party, Tony was being a jerk and everybody was drinking and Gary just got a bit upset.

  Gary is listening to the White Stripes right now.

  Gary is thinking about growing his hair.

  Gary is listening to M.I.A. right now.

  Gary really likes some rap but not all rap. Gary’s grandmother is deaf and sometimes she comes down the stairs when they’re on the couch and they have to jump up. Gary really likes art films. He’s seen all of Kubrick.

  Tony Heffernan was twirling her around and he and Amber did a move from Dirty Dancing and she could see Gary on the couch with his arms crossed, the couch with a broken leg, and he was really pissed off but they were having so much fun dancing.

  She knew Gary’d had too much to drink, so she decided to leave. He pushed himself up off the couch and stood in the doorway, blocked the door, yes, okay, that happened, he wouldn’t let her walk home by herself because it was late. I mean, it’s dangerous. At night. To walk by yourself, obviously. If you’re a girl.

  Amber wouldn’t actually call it a shove. He put his hand on her shoulder. He did not shove her. That was just Elaine Power exaggerating. Elaine with her third-wave feminism which she will never shut up about.

  Gary caught Elaine on the GoPro camera mouthing off and it’s really funny. She’s really shrill and Gary might put it in the music video but just, like, turn down the sound so it’ll just be Elaine’s big mouth going.

  And Tony Heffernan was exaggerating and they shouldn’t have written that on Facebook. It just made it worse. Gary called him a fag, yes, that’s true, right up in his face, a faggot, and it’s true that spit came out of his mouth and landed on Tony’s face, and Tony is gay is the problem, and he’s studying ballet, so it wasn’t nice of Gary, that’s true, he got carried away because he felt so jealous. But he apologized later to Tony, Sorry about that man — bros, right? And okay, so he’s not totally perfect, he’s very sensitive, and sometimes he loses his temper a little bit because, it’s because he really loves her, and Gary wrote a song about Amber that’s really beautiful.

  Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary.

  What a weird word it is. Gary. When you hear it over and over. There’s only one word worse than Gary.

  And that word is we.

  Since when did Amber become we, I want to ask her. I used to be half of we, I’d like to tell her. I hardly knew what she meant, when I first heard her say it.

  We have to study for biology. We think what’s going on in the Middle East right now is scary. We both got 89 on that quiz. We think it’s dangerous for girls to drink because they’re vulnerable. We think that when girls get drunk, like, what do they expect? We think sexual assault is not okay, obviously, but, like Gary says, we think you have to take care of yourself. You can’t just go passing out all over the place. Like, who goes down to George Street dressed like that? Like, let’s not get all victimy here. We think it’s okay to protest, of course, but graffiti is destroying public property. Like, is vandalism okay all of a sudden? I mean it’s fine, obviously, but somebody has to pay for that, Flannery.

  Amber, what’s going on with your face?

  Pardon?

  Your expression, you look surprised all the time these days. Wait a minute, did you pluck your eyebrows?

  I had them waxed. So what?

  You had them waxed? You paid for that? You know your eyebrows don’t grow back, right?

  I think it looks nice. Gary paid for it, if you must know.

  Let me guess. Gary thought your eyebrows were too hairy?

  We think you should get it done too, actually. You’re getting a unibrow, Flan.

  We’re in the basement of the Arts and Culture Centre by this point, surrounded by tons and tons and tons of costumes. There are a gazillion giant white Sugar Plum Fairy dresses with tulle skirts and lots of sequins and feather boas and faux-mink stoles. I’m wearing a red saloon dress with a giant bustle on the back, and Amber has on a mermaid costume. She’s standing in front of a giant mirror framed in lightbulbs, trying to flap her tail. I’ve just put on a hat that has a big pile of fruit on the brim — apples, oranges, pears and bananas. I lift the netting that hangs off the brim of the hat. Amber is staring at herself. She looks so beautiful, but somehow even more tired than usual, the circles under her eyes darker than before.

  We better get this stuff back on the hangers, she says. It’s already quarter to five. I’ll just tell the lady what we’ve decided to borrow. She has to tag the stuff, and then we’ll come back and get it on the day of the shoot.

  I’m putting all the hats back on the top shelf while Amber lists off everything she needs to the costume lady in another office.

  Neither of us mentions, on the walk home, that Gary didn’t show up. Instead Amber wants to talk about losing your virginity with someone you love, when you’re ready, of course. The person you’re going to spend your life with. No big deal, right?

  Obviously, it doesn’t have to be that way, she says. I mean, you don’t have to love the guy or girl or whoever. I mean, it can be casual. It can just be fun, you know. That’s what Melody Martin says.

  But if you happen to have found the guy you’re supposed to love for your whole life, might as well be him, right?

  I think I will be in love with Tyrone my whole life, I say.

  Tyrone is just a passing thing, she says. I’m talking about love.

  11

  I was almost nine and Tyrone had just turned ten. Almost seven years ago. Before Felix was born. Before everything. Or almost everything.

  Tyrone was a scrawny, already too-tall kid with big eyes and dark lashes and black curly hair, waterskiing for the first time.

  He was way out on the glassy lake. The boat was rocking gently in a blast of white sparkles. Tyrone’s stepdad, Marty, was in silhouette because the sun was a big maraschino cherry behind him, sinking fast.

  I could see Tyrone’s head floating above the water and the tips of the white skis and the line the rope made floating on the surface. The day was almost over and soon the wedding guests were going to help gather up the chairs from the lawn and the dancing would begin.

  A carpet of white sparkles had unfurled on the water from the speedboat to me. I was sitting on the dock kicking my feet through the shimmer, and it looked like I could have stood up and walked out on it, all the way to the boat and Tyrone.

  We’d been told weeks in advance that there would be waterskiing for the kids at the wedding. The invitation had demanded, in curly gold script: Kids, bring your swimsuits!!! Miranda said they’d gone a bit overboard with the exclamation marks, but other than that she didn’t say anything about the invitation.

  If she was upset that Hank was getting married so soon after they’d broken up, she wasn’t going to let it show. I think she decided to go to the wedding to prove she was okay with being jilted — which she definitely wasn’t. Or maybe she needed to be there to prove to herself he wa
s really gone.

  Tyrone’s stepdad was a groomsman. He had promised Hank he’d be in charge of the waterskiing. There was Marty, one hand on the wheel, beer bottle in the other hand, still wearing his tuxedo with a pink carnation on the lapel.

  Tyrone had been obsessed with the waterskiing from the day he got wind of it. He had never waterskied before. But he and I watched YouTube videos and read tips and talked about what it must feel like to fly across the surface of the water.

  By the day of the wedding, Tyrone’s excitement had a voltage of about a gazillion megawatts.

  Don’t get all worked up about reducing your ski angle, Tyrone was telling anybody who’d listen (even the adults, who had no intention of ditching the open bar for the lake).

  Square your shoulders over your knees, he was saying. That’s a big part of staying up.

  As soon as Marty got the speedboat out of the boathouse, a lineup formed of all the kids at the wedding old enough to waterski. Tyrone was the first in line, but Marty kept ignoring him, taking the kid behind him, and then the kid behind that kid.

  Okay, who’s next? Marty kept saying. Everybody’s hand shot up and they were hopping up and down, jutting their hands into the sky and screaming, Me! Me!

  Tyrone had been swimming and I could see beads of water on his bare shoulder, burning with sunlight. He was shivering. But there was a steady current of anticipation flowing out of his brown eyes. He kept his eyes on the boat and he didn’t jump up and down like everybody else. He raised his hand and held it straight while Marty’s eyes slid right over him.

  Parents kept wandering down to the shore to thank Marty, standing at the edge of the wharf and cheering when it was their kid’s turn. Marty was every kid’s best friend: “Let Uncle Marty help you with that life jacket!”

  But Marty made Tyrone wait until the very last. Tyrone had wanted to impress everybody, but the other kids, blue-lipped and shivering in their damp towels, had all wandered back up to the house to change. Tyrone would have an audience of one. Me.