Saturday Fiction

Posted on 1/22/2011 by cheesefairy

Small Eyes

Reeta saw the man take the little girl. She saw the whole thing from her front porch. She had come out to get her mail when she saw a man down the block. He was standing on the sidewalk, just looking around. He couldn’t see her, she didn’t think. He just stood there, looking around. Reeta stared right at him, waiting for him to turn his head and see her watching.

The phone rang and she jumped. She closed the front door but not all the way and went inside to look at the phone. Call display said nothing. She didn’t answer.

Reeta went back out to her porch and he was still standing on the sidewalk, still looking around. She didn’t know why she kept watching him. She knew he was going to do something before he did it, that’s what she thought afterwards, she knew he was up to something. So she watched.

But when he did do something, when he took the little girl by the wrist so hard her arm bent up like an arrow, and pulled her behind him into the red sedan parked right there, next to where he had been standing, Reeta couldn’t move. She had been watching, waiting for him to do something and he had done something and then she couldn’t move.

How did he keep her quiet, she wondered. How did that little girl just go, hop in the front seat with him, drive off, without making any noise. Was he a relative? A friend of the family?

When she saw the story on the news weeks later, after they found the girl’s body, Reeta knew it had not been a friend of the family. No one who had a connection to a little girl could do things like that to her. She watched the news, shaking her head slightly. Her husband said it was terrible. Disgusting. Her children were in their bedroom, playing with Lego. They didn’t watch the news. It was more violent than other kinds of TV put together, that’s what her husband said.

The only mystery then, was why didn’t she say anything. Why didn’t she say anything when the girl appeared on her lawn, when she disappeared, when she was found mangled and dead. Why did Reeta keep her lips tightly shut when she saw everything, knew everything.

Reeta didn’t know. Maybe she thought it was too late, but that wasn’t it because they still hadn’t caught the man, the murderer. He was still on the loose, at large, he could be in their neighbourhood, watching their house. Maybe he remembered her standing on her porch, watching him. Maybe her kids were next. Maybe she was next.

Was it wrong for Reeta to feel a quick thrill right before the dread and panic when she imagined this? Yes, it was wrong, but she still felt it. She still felt anxious and bored, anxious and bored, all the time. She needed some livening up. Thrill and dread made a nice change.

Reeta stared into her own eyes in the bathroom mirror. Her eyes were small and the corners drooped. Her aunt Cindy had told her she had small eyes when she was a little girl and Reeta had always identified with pigs or mice, those cute ugly animals with their eyes peering out of their pudgy faces. Make-up made no difference, she had tried. She had perfect vision so she didn’t even get to wear glasses to magnify them. Small eyes, they were her cross to bear.

Her husband knocked on the bathroom door. She ignored him. They only had one bathroom in this house, not like the last house. It was called down-sizing for a reason. She wondered if they would ever up-size again. They were lucky; they still had a house. After all, there were people who lived in boxes, with their suitcases, on the street. Six kids and a cardboard box. Of course, then there were the people with no kids and big houses. The little girl had been an only child and now her parents were alone in their house, with only pictures of her and dried up flowers in rancid vases taking up all the space.

Her own daughter was five years old. Her son was seven. She was well past her childbearing years. If one of the children died, Reeta would have to make do with the other. If they both died, well, she would have to mourn them. Reeta stared hard at herself. Her mouth frowned. Her lips were cracked. She could never find her lip balm when she wanted it.

You all right in there, he called from outside the door. He liked to read his textbooks in the bathroom, for the peace and quiet.

She could tell, she supposed. She could tell everyone what she had seen. She could still picture him perfectly well. She could help an artist sketch a composite. Still, it was nice having a secret.

Reeta turned out the light and unlocked the door. The dishes needed doing.

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Hockey Mom-dom Looms

Posted on 1/21/2011 by cheesefairy

This month’s preschool field trip was to the ice rink. Trombone was EXCITED. Wow. Skating. We have never been ice skating.

“I am going to go so fast!” he said, every day this week, “I am going to go SOOOOO FAST. And there is going to be hockey. And I am going to score goals! I am going to play hockey.”
“Um,” I said, every day this week, “it takes a while to learn to go fast. You’ll probably have to start slow…”
“I’m going to play HOCKEY,” said Fresco.
“You’re going to ride in the buggy,” I told Fresco.

Every day this week.

Today dawned, wet and grey.

“Today’s the day of my field trip!” said Trombone, “oh, I forgot!” He laughed. He has developed a very fun laugh of late. Kind of a heavy chortle.
“We’re going SKATING!” said Fresco.
“You’re going to ride in the buggy,” I said.

One grand mal (trenta?) tantrum with kicking later I agreed he could skate too. Fine. Fine! It’ll be fine.

All kitted out with skates (sizes 9, 12, and 11 for me) (OMG kids’ hockey skates are so cute!) and helmets (small and gigantic) (no I did not wear a helmet) we headed for the ice. Tiny, clomping children everywhere. Adults clomping after them. Many helpful teachers and instructors and strangers.

Trombone got to the edge of the rink and stopped.

“That’s the ice?”
“Yeah, that’s the ice.”

Fresco’s pulling at my hand trying to get on the ice.

“It’s flat.”
“Yeah, it’s flat.”
“Hm.”

We stepped out and a helpful instructor type helped Fresco get behind the steel frame thing that you push around the ice. He pretty much just skated off with her. She looked over her shoulder and said, “Is it his first time? He’s really good.”

I suspect this is because Trombone’s teacher laced up Fresco’s skates and she really knew what she was doing.

So I helped Trombone grab one of the steel frame things and step on the ice and his feet just went !whoops! right out from under him. Poor guy had a bit of a cry. I think that scared Fresco, too, because he didn’t want to skate anymore after that.

Instructor girl came back and ushered Trombone over to the middle of the rink where they have a sandbox full of snow to play in. Fresco and I made our way over and there they played for 15 minutes.

For a first time on ice, they both did really well. Luckily there were a lot of people who had one or no children with them to help out and take the kids around the rink on a toboggan or in a giant plastic truck. And I didn’t fall once! I think the last time I went skating was in 1990, so I am ever so impressed with myself.

On the way home, Trombone said,

“It was different than I thought.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“It was so flat,” he said, “I thought it would be tilted. Like a mountain.”
“Ah,” I said.

What? Can you imagine? He can.

“And the hockey game never started,” he said.
“Well, it was going on at the end of the rink,” I said. “Maybe you didn’t notice because you were concentrating.”
“I didn’t go very fast,” he said.
“No,” I agreed.
“Next time I’ll go fast.”
“I’m sure.”
“Next time we’ll race.”
“Uh huh.”
“And I’ll WIN.”
“OK then.”

(Related: Here is the first post I ever wrote about hockey, for the now-defunct Canada Moms blog.)

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Dwayne

Posted on 1/20/2011 by cheesefairy

Today’s prompt is neighbours. Or neighbors if you’re American.

I am helping Dad change the oil in our car, the blue Ford Tempo that he bought when I could no longer fit in the backseat of the 2-door Mustang. I must be 11 or 12 years old. Dad thinks everyone should know how to change the oil in a car. I decided to come out here with him rather than help with the chores inside the house. Mom always makes me do dishes and vacuum and I prefer being out here in the men’s world of car maintenance.

Dad’s garage is like a hardware store; stocked with screws, nails, ladders and random sheets of steel. It is dark and it smells like wood and metal. We have our garage door open because it’s summertime. The hood is up on the car and we are peering in at the engine, when the neighbour across the lane, whose name is Dwayne, pulls up outside his garage in his own shit-kicker of a car.

Dwayne drives an old, pale blue Honda Civic that takes ten minutes to start in the morning. He tinkers with his car a lot, usually with a transistor radio nearby, blaring classic rock. Today he gets out of the car and pulls a six-pack of beer from the trunk. He pops the top of one beer, hoists it up and says, Hey Len, got the kid helping you out, eh?

Dad smiles and says hello but he doesn’t like Dwayne, and so, neither do I, even though I am awestruck by his flagrant abuse of the rules. He drinks beer in the alley, he calls his car (and everyone else) a fucker. I think he was the first person I ever heard use the word “fuck” and he used it like a waiter uses a corkscrew. He is gloriously, happily profane.

My parents would cringe if we were in the backyard, enjoying a summer afternoon behind our carefully maintained 10 foot cedar hedge, and we heard Dwayne come out of his back gate or pull up in his car. They could protect their yard from being seen, but they couldn’t stop the clouds of foul language and cigarette smoke from drifting over the fence. It drove them crazy. There were many angry conversations over dinner about how inconsiderate and boorish and (Dad’s ultimate insult) good-for-nothing certain members of our neighbourhood were.

I remember summer afternoons, sitting in the backyard, the plastic lawn chair stuck to my back with sweat, reading a book or Sassy magazine, hoping Dwayne would come out. I thrilled to hear his coarse language, his grunts and angry explosions, the clang and smash of the Rolling Stones on the radio, the slam of his tools on the cement. I loved seeing my parents get so upset, without it being my fault.

Dad walks me through the oil change and we wipe our hands on an old, greasy cloth he keeps hanging on a hook by the door. OK, see you, eh? he says to Dwayne and turns his back without waiting for an answer. I press the garage door button and between the ground and the descending door I see Dwayne gather some saliva in his mouth, and spit into the alley.

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How McDonald’s is like a Public Urinal, and Why That isn’t a Bad Thing

Posted on 1/19/2011 by cheesefairy

Sometimes, while Trombone is at school, I take Fresco to a coffee shop for a muffin. He has become, over the past two years, quite addicted to coffee shops and their muffins. We frequent many coffee shops; both chains and independents, and we don’t generally go out of our way to go to one or another. Except the Waves at Edmonds and Kingsway, because it is located right next to the library. That is my only “destination” coffee shop.

I had no plans for today’s during-preschool-outing so I asked Fresco which way to turn the car and he said “left” so I went left and then “right” and then “left” and there we were at the outdoor mall right off a highway of sorts, where there is a Starbucks and a Tim Hortons and a McDonald’s so I decided we’d go in the McDonald’s for Fresco’s muffin.

We’ve been to this McDonald’s three times now. It attracts business people (cell phone salesman-style) on their way somewhere else, middle-to-late-aged couples who sit together quietly, drinking giant coffees and reading the paper, (always The Province, our local, tabloid-style newspaper) a group of old guys who have been there each time I have, always at the same table, and a fluctuating count of people who don’t appear to be mentally stable.

It was there, today, when I really thought about the brand for each coffee chain and how McDonald’s might be the king of fast food but is definitely the public urinal of coffee shops.

Starbucks customers subscribe to a hierarchy, where those who order no-foam, soy-whip, half-caf, venti lattes demand a grudging respect, if only for being so damn specific about their coffee, and where “ordinary coffee” customers get the stink eye. Double stink-eye if you have kids with you who might disturb the Important Business Meeting taking place over on the comfy chairs.*

* I always keep my kids as quiet and respectful as I can in public places and I have still been shown the hoity-face from the folk who treat Starbucks like their personal boardroom. Want privacy? Rent an office!

Tim Hortons has the small-town feel, where customers who don’t understand how to order a coffee (they put your cream & sugar in for you, behind the counter) get sympathetic nods and explanations, and where dogs and kids get free doughnut holes. The grandparents and friendly construction workers are at Tim Hortons and they will say hello to you and flirt with your baby.

Blenz is kind of – like a wormhole.

Now, I have never attended to my business in a public urinal, but I have been told by men (and have observed in media) that it is all about TCB – taking care of business – you don’t look at the guy next to you, you don’t try to make conversation, you just look at your peeing member and silently adore it (extrapolation mine) and then you go wash your hands and get back to your beer / dinner / shopping / date.

Which is just like McDonald’s! You walk in, you do your business, you don’t talk to anybody, and you leave. There is no judgment, no staring, no caring. There was a woman, today, who walked into the McDonald’s carrying a baby doll. She was carrying it like a real baby. She put it next to her on the chair and looked at it every once in a while while she ate her McMuffin. NO ONE ELSE NOTICED. Or, if they noticed, they were totally subtle about it. She feels safe at McDonald’s. No one sees her.

That’s the kind of coffee shop that’s my speed right now (when I have a child with me). I don’t actually need the coffee, so the fact that it tastes like it was brewed in a camel’s stomach is of no concern. I don’t have two hours to sit and write cryptic notes in my notebook, or even one hour to type on my laptop. I have the length of time it takes Fresco to eat a muffin to soak up all the weird, wonderful coffee shop humanity I can and, if I’m lucky, scribble some words on the tray liner that will trigger my memory later.

No one distracts me with conversation, no one makes Fresco bury his head in my hip by saying hello and complimenting his mittens, no one looks twice at us or cares that there are muffin crumbs everywhere, because it is McDonald’s. There is a guy with a cloth waiting to wipe our table. No one says hello or goodbye. It is about as close to being invisible as a human can get, which is about as awesome as it gets for me.

(It is also rather depressing, on many other levels, but I’m not going to explore those levels today.)

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Notes from Mother’s Journal: Shopping

Posted on 1/18/2011 by cheesefairy

Shopping I

It was interesting reading your comments on yesterday’s raincoat post. So many of you went the modification route – tailoring, rubbing with tallow (?), rigging it so that I could have the coat I wanted AND the coat that existed. I never think about tailors. I never think about customizations. I think it’s because I have always been standard size; not super tall or super short, not super wide or super thin. My boobs are average. I can buy off the rack.

I am very lucky for this, but it means that I am not a creative shopper, in a lot of ways. If I find what I want, I buy it. If I don’t, I don’t. If I was 5’2″ I imagine I would have a different approach to shopping for pants. It wouldn’t just be about the hips.

In other words, aside from how much money I have to spend – which isn’t very much, but still, I am not *limited* to thrift and consignment, I choose to shop there – I am shopping from a privileged place.

Shopping II

This morning I said to the kids, what do you want to do today? I am not feeling very well and have very little energy – am either fighting off a proper cold or enduring a Mom Cold

– you know, the Mom Cold. Where you don’t have enough time to get really sick so you just operate at 40% for three or six days –

anyway, I felt this morning like I got two hours of sleep on four bottles of wine, which could not be further from the truth.

Trombone said, “Let’s go to Toys R Us!”
I said, “We were just there on Sunday! Nothing will be new.”

Because on Sunday we did our grocery shopping at the Superstore at the mall and afterward, while I bought $10 36B bras, SA took the kids to Toys R Us to look at toys.

Trombone said, “OK, how about Zellers.” (Zellers, soon to be Target, if that gives you Americans any idea what I’m talking about)

Please note. The kids don’t actually GET any toys when we go toy shopping. They just browse. They love to browse. They exclaim over everything and press all the buttons and try out the bikes. They are in a strange shopping stage. Don’t get me wrong. I am happy that they don’t whine and cajole. If they whined and cajoled I wouldn’t take them shopping.

Although, the last time we went to Zellers it was for the express purpose of choosing toys to buy with gift cards they got for Christmas, so I clarified,

“We are not spending any money at Zellers, right?”
“Oh yeah, right right,” they said.

OK. I put some tea in a travel mug and we drove across the killer Patullo bridge to Surrey and went to the Surrey Central City Mall. 45 minutes in Zellers! They looked at the toys and I leaned against the shelves and drank my tea.

“Well, these toys aren’t very fun,” said Fresco.
“Yeah, let’s see if there are any other stores,” said Trombone.

So we went out into the mall – a mall I have been to once or twice I think, and only because there is an AMAAAAAZING liquor store within it. There was a Winners. We looked at the toys at Winners.

“Nah,” said Trombone, “why don’t we go look at some shoes.”

Some shoes.

“I am not buying you any shoes,” I said. I was weary. It was close to lunchtime and I had mall head and I had already changed Fresco’s diaper in the mall bathroom because where do we poop? THE MALL.

“I know, I know,” Trombone said, “I just want to LOOK at shoes.”

I don’t know why I pressed the issue, but I did. I’m just ornery I guess.

“There is no point in looking at shoes when we don’t need shoes,” I said.
“But I like LOOKING at shoes,” he insisted. He was quite adamant. “I like the exciting ones that flash. And I like Spiderman shoes. And I like thinking about what shoes I will get next!”

Clearly he is my son. Yes. We even wear the same size – 11 – his in kid, mine in adult.

So we looked at some shoes at Payless. Then I remembered we needed bread so I looked at the mall directory to see if there was anywhere to buy bread and there wasn’t, but there is a Taco Bell in the food court.

I really love Taco Bell. I know. It’s disgusting. I know.

I ate tacos and the kids ate fries and I watched, uncomfortably, as the woman at the table next to us paused in her cell phone conversation to yell at her daughter (toddler age) for spilling her apple juice and interrupting her while she was on the phone. Then she told her daughter to stand away from the table, against a pillar. I think she was trying to do a time out in the mall food court. It didn’t work.

Depressing, the mall food court. Although I found myself thinking that it would be a great place to work if you were pregnant. Taco Bell, Greek food, Chinese, Japanese, pitas, salads, burgers and! a “Beard Papa’s” which is a franchised CREAM PUFF store. Man. If I had been pregnant working in that mall, maybe my feet would be a size 12 now.

(The food court in my old workplace was really fucking awful.)

I had to buy bread at Zellers. At Zellers, the Wonder Bread is at kid height and comes in shiny foil bags covered in colourful balloon shapes. Fresco is obsessed with Wonder Bread. Those bread marketers really know what they’re doing.

I kind of can’t wait until Spring. I miss the playground.

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