Optimists Die First, Page 2

  The walk took fifteen minutes. That was a full eight minutes longer than usual because a building between the school and our apartment had been torn down in December, and now a construction site filled almost an entire city block. I had to take a detour to avoid it.

  Up ahead, I watched as the Girl Formerly Known as My Best Friend and her posse walked right past the site. I almost shouted out a warning. But I knew she would give me an exasperated, pitying look, so I said nothing. I turned left instead of going straight and ran through my mental checklist.

  Cross only at designated crosswalks and intersections, check.

  Step into the road only after all vehicular traffic has come to a full stop, check.

  Scan pavement for suspicious objects, bags, or parcels, check.

  Give wide berth to irresponsible dog owners who don’t have said pet on leash even though it’s the law, check. Don’t become an animal’s chew toy, check.

  Look over shoulder occasionally to make sure you are not being followed, check.

  Rape whistle around neck, check. Keys secured between your knuckles, check.

  My knot of anxiety loosened when I arrived on our street, a quiet one-way in Vancouver’s West End.

  It is a nice street. Chestnut trees line both sides of the road, and the buildings are all low-rise. Ours stands right in the middle of the block, four stories with a yellow brick exterior, the word ARCADIA over its front door. We’re on the top floor, or, as Dad likes to joke, the penthouse.

  Our street and our building were not without danger. But I had safe zones, and this was one of them. For one thing, I’d done due diligence when we first moved in over a year ago. I’d anonymously called in all sorts of building inspectors. Thanks to me the wiring is now to code and every apartment has a new sprinkler system. You’d think the absentee landlord would have been pleased, but instead he sent all the tenants a letter, threatening to “uncover the rat.”

  He never did.

  He did get one response to his letter, though. A postcard with no return address and a simple message on the back: Whatever! And you’re welcome!

  —

  First thing I did when I entered our apartment was the smell check. On a scale of one to ten, today was a three. Changing the litter in the boxes could wait another day.

  Mom’s red rubber boots were in the foyer. I put my purple ones beside hers and wriggled out of my peacoat. Anne of Green Gables, Stuart Little, Moominmamma, and Ferdinand crowded around me. “I’m home,” I called out.

  “Hi, Tula. I’m in the bedroom.”

  The cats meowed and rubbed against my legs. “All right, all right, give me a minute,” I said as sternly as I could, which was next to impossible thanks to their dangerous levels of cuteness. I couldn’t even get very mad when I dropped my tote bag in the living room and saw that one of them—I’d bet good money it was Anne of Green Gables—had left a shockingly large turd in the middle of the carpet. How could something so big come out of something so small? I wondered, not for the first time.

  I donned rubber gloves and cleaned up the mess, and checked the phone for messages, hoping I’d beat Mom to it. Sure enough, there was one from the school nurse. I deleted it. Then I got a bag of cat treats from the kitchen and gave the cats two each. “That’ll tide you over till dinner.”

  I headed to my parents’ bedroom, carrying Ferdinand, the oldest of our cats, in my arms like a furry orange toddler. Mom was at her computer, tapping out an email, still in her work clothes. Her wavy chestnut hair was pulled into a bun. Maxine had had the same light curl to her hair, and I’d always felt a bit envious. My hair is boring and straight. I’d cut it short a month earlier, trying to go for the Lena Dunham look. I got Beaker from the Muppets instead. In fact, the only redeeming feature I got from my mom, who is far prettier than me, is my eye color. We both have hazel eyes, more green than brown.

  “Hey, Mom. How was your day?”

  “Oh, fine. I sold more books than candles, and that’s always a plus.” Mom works for a chain bookstore at a mall in Burnaby, and the managers love her because unlike some of their employees, my mom actually reads.

  She sent the email and swiveled in her chair.

  My face fell. “You didn’t.” Curled up in her lap were two jet-black cats.

  She gave me a look that managed to be sheepish and unapologetic at the same time. “I did.”

  “You promised.”

  “I know, I know, but what could I do? Angie called me in a pinch.” Angie runs the Vancouver Feline Rescue Association, where Mom volunteers. “They found these two abandoned and half-starved under a porch. All the other foster homes are full. Angie dropped them off an hour ago. It’s just until we can find them ‘forever homes.’ ”

  “That’s what you said about Anne of Green Gables, Stuart Little, and Moominmamma.”

  “It’s harder to find homes for the older ones. These two are still young, so it shouldn’t be too bad.” Mom held one of the black cats out to me. Ferdinand hissed. “I’m calling this one Stanley, from Stanley’s Party. And this one is Alice, from Alice, I Think.”

  I am a sucker for a feline face. I scratched Stanley’s ears and he purred and purred; he seemed good-natured and docile. But it didn’t take away from certain cold, hard facts, like the fact that we could barely afford the four cats we already had. “Dad’s going to kill you.”

  “I’ll deal with Dad,” she said breezily. Like it was going to be the easiest thing on earth.

  —

  Mom whipped us up a tofu stir-fry for dinner. I made us a salad from a head of lettuce, peeling off the outer leaves and discarding them, then washing the remaining leaves with a little dish soap. Mom swore she could taste it, but I reminded her that a hint of Joy was better than getting infected with E. coli. After we’d served ourselves, I dished out a plate for Dad, pushing his food into a smiley face before covering it with plastic wrap and putting it in the fridge.

  We watched cat videos on Mom’s laptop while we ate. All six cats hung out in the living room with us. Ferdinand let Stanley and Alice know who was boss. At one point, Alice pawed tentatively at my skirt, then curled up in my lap and fell asleep. Mom smiled. “You have to admit, it’s nice having some new babies.”

  Yes, my mom calls the cats her babies. And yes, it’s pretty easy to find deeper meaning behind it. But the cats—especially Ferdinand—helped drag her out of her pit of despair after Maxine died, which was something no one else—not me, not my dad, not her therapist—had been able to do.

  On the screen, Maru the Japanese cat was trying to fit into boxes that got progressively smaller. I’d seen the video before, but it made me laugh every time.

  “Remember when your grandparents sent Maxine that toy stove?” Mom said. “And she was so much more interested in the box?”

  “I helped her make a playhouse out of it.”

  “She loved that box.” Mom brought up memories of my baby sister like this all the time. Sometimes I didn’t mind; sometimes I wished she would just shut up.

  Tonight I wished she would just shut up.

  —

  After I’d loaded the dishwasher and scrubbed the counters with antibacterial cleanser, I took a shower, making sure the rubber mat was secure. The statistics on injuries and deaths due to bathtub falls are eye-popping.

  When I was done, I was grateful that the mirror was fogged up so I didn’t have to see my tall, scrawny bod naked. “You have supermodel height without supermodel looks,” a boy named Carl had explained matter-of-factly to me in sixth grade, when I’d had my first of many growth spurts and loomed over the other kids. “Well, except for your boobs. They’re supermodel boobs. Itsy-bitsy.” I was not sad when Carl and his family moved to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

  I streaked naked down the hall to my bedroom, tossed my dirty clothes onto the pile on the floor, and put on my penguin onesie. Rachel, the Girl Formerly Known as My Best Friend, had a matching one; we’d made them together, back when we were inseparable. I often
wondered if she still wore hers. Once or twice I’d almost emailed her to find out.

  Almost.

  The tower of books by my bed had been toppled by a feline. After I restacked them, I pulled my scrapbook out from its hiding place under the bed. I had nothing new to add to it, but I glanced through it for a while because it calmed me down.

  When I was done I climbed into bed and polished off the latest Ann-Marie MacDonald novel. It’s one of the perks of Mom’s job; she often gets advance reader’s copies of books before they’re published, which she passes on to me when she’s done.

  Just after eleven, I heard Dad come in. A few minutes later, I heard the microwave beeping. I hoped he’d seen the smiley face. I hoped it had made him smile.

  I hoped he wouldn’t notice Alice and Stanley until morning.

  I thought about getting up to join him while he ate. I pictured the two of us sitting on the couch. I pictured putting my feet on his lap. I pictured him joking about the smell before he gave me one of his famous foot massages.

  A few years ago—when Maxine was still alive, and life seemed infinite and full of possibility—the Girl Formerly Known as My Best Friend and I had been at her place, making bottle-cap wind chimes. One of the caps had rolled under the TV console. She dug around for it and found not only the cap but also a dusty, caseless DVD called The Secret.

  “What do you think it is?” she asked.

  “Beats me.”

  I think we were both afraid to find out. What if her parents were into weird sex? That would be something we could never unknow. But curiosity won out. We popped it into the DVD player.

  It wasn’t anything to do with sex. It was a kind of self-help video, an instructional guide to happiness through the power of belief. Like, if you cut out a photo of a new car you wanted and stared at the photo all the time and pictured yourself driving the car—if you believed strongly enough that you deserved it—by the sheer power of your belief you would eventually get it. At least, that was my takeaway. Even at twelve and a half we thought it was pretty hokey, but that didn’t stop us from trying it for a while. Rachel cut out a picture of all the members of One Direction (because, as she said, “any of them would do”) and tried to imagine that one of them was her boyfriend. I tried something a little more realistic and cut out a photo of a glue gun.

  I got the glue gun for Christmas. Rachel didn’t get a One Direction boyfriend, but she did briefly go out with a boy who had hair like Niall’s.

  —

  I wished that by simply picturing me and my dad hanging out on the couch in comfortable silence—maybe even listening to a bit of music—I could make it come true.

  But that wasn’t how life worked. So I stayed put.

  Moominmamma was curled up by my feet. Anne of Green Gables was curled up on my chest.

  Maxine used to come into my room at night sometimes and wedge her little body right up against mine. I’d be sticky with sweat by morning, but I never minded, because there was something magnificent about feeling her chubby toddler belly pressing into me, her little chest rising and falling, her hot breath against my cheek.

  Before I turned out the light I picked up the photo of my baby sister from my bedside table and kissed it. “I love you, Maxine. I’m sorry, Maxine.”

  I said that every single night.

  Because I was the one who’d killed her.

  I was ten years old when I found out Mom was pregnant with Maxine. We were still living in the apartment on Comox Street. Mom and Dad were forty. They made a point of saying the pregnancy was not an accident but a pleasant surprise.

  I was not amused. I had a good life as an only child. But then, in a weirdly awesome bit of synchronicity, Rachel’s mom got pregnant, too. The babies were due about three months apart. Rachel and I were crafting fiends, and we realized that the crafting possibilities for newborns were endless. We knit blueberry caps and made sock monkeys and sewed soft fleece blankets. Suddenly we couldn’t wait for our siblings to arrive so we could play dress-up.

  Maxine Ella was born first. Because Dad got to choose my first name, Mom got to choose hers, and Maxine was as close as she could get to the name Max, from her favorite children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are. Dad chose Ella, after Ella Fitzgerald.

  Rachel’s brother Owen was born shortly afterward. We were fiercely proud of being big sisters. Yes, we enjoyed dressing them up. But it went much further and deeper than that.

  When she wasn’t screaming like a banshee, Maxine was the sweetest, happiest little girl. Her favorite book was, no surprise, Where the Wild Things Are. She thought it had been written just for her. So, for Maxine’s third birthday, Rachel suggested we make her her very own wolf suit.

  We picked out a soft, fawn-colored wool. I knit the suit and the hood, with its two pointy ears. Rachel sewed a soft fleecy lining. I hand-sewed brown buttons down the front.

  Max loved that suit. She wanted to wear it all the time. When Mom or Dad insisted that she take it off, she would drag the suit around, like a blanket. She even slept with it, sucking on the fabric like it was a pacifier.

  On November eighteenth, just over two years ago, Mom and Dad went shopping. I stayed home with Maxine. Rachel was going to come over with Owen, but she called to say he had a fever.

  Max was in a rotten mood. She’d woken at five that morning, and by one o’clock she was overtired and miserable. I told her it was time for her nap.

  She threw a tantrum. I put her in her room anyway. I could hear her screams from the kitchen, where I was trying to do homework. After a while she calmed down. I walked past her room at one point and heard her talking to herself, playing happily.

  Then it got really quiet. I figured she’d fallen asleep.

  My parents came home a while later. Dad went into Maxine’s room to wake her up.

  I still have nightmares about his screams.

  Maxine had been using the wolf suit as a blanket. She’d been sucking on one of the buttons, and the button came loose. It lodged in her throat.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  Everyone said it wasn’t my fault. Everyone said it was no one’s fault; it was just a random, horrible accident.

  My head tries to believe it, but my heart can’t.

  I learned some lessons that day:

  1) Life is not fair.

  2) Tragedy can strike when you least expect it.

  3) Always expect the worst. That way, you might stand a chance of protecting yourself and the ones you love.

  The Bionic Man was in three of my classes.

  Three too many, I thought as he sat in front of me in English class on Thursday afternoon, blocking my view. His dark green sweater smelled like sheep.

  We were studying Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë, which had been my and Rachel’s favorite book since we were twelve. I’d read it at least four times.

  As the clock crept toward dismissal, Mr. Herbert gave us an assignment. “Instead of a traditional essay, I want you to adapt a portion of the novel—your choice which part. Turn it into a screenplay, a radio play, or a stage play. Or a poem, or the lyrics for a song—whatever you want. The objective is simply to be creative. You’ll present your finished work to the class.”

  I let out a sigh. Mr. Herbert is young for a teacher, and he believes that thinking outside the box—and wearing Fluevog shoes and Mavi jeans—gives him a dash of cool.

  Nope.

  “It’s due in two weeks,” he continued. “And to make it a little more fun, you’ll be working in pairs.”

  No. Nononononononono.

  In less than a minute everyone had a partner, including the Girl Formerly Known as My Best Friend. Even Alonzo, my one ray of hope, had paired up.

  “All right, anyone without a partner?” asked Mr. Herbert.

  I slowly raised my hand.

  So did the Bionic Man.

  He turned around in his seat and grinned. “Looks like it’s you and me, Petunia.”

  My skin felt clammy. My he
art started pounding. Pairs were for the socially adept. I would have to talk to Mr. Watley. Get an exemption, for medical reasons. He could write me a note: No longer plays well with others.

  When the bell rang I hurried out of class. But Jacob matched my stride. He followed me to my locker. “So, Petunia—

  “My name is not Petunia! Do I look like a Petunia?”

  He gazed at my quilted floral vest and felt flower earrings and I felt the blood rush to my face. “You really want me to answer that?”

  “Who would name their kid Petunia? It’s Petula.”

  “No offense, but who would name their kid Petula?”

  I swiveled my lock. “My mom and dad tossed a coin. He got to choose my first name and she got to choose my middle. And one of Dad’s favorite singers is Petula Clark.” The Bionic Man gave me a blank look. “ ‘Don’t Sleep in the Subway’?”

  “Oh. Sure. My bubbe loves that song.”

  I shot a quick glance at him. He was just this side of good-looking, like one of the lesser Baldwin brothers.

  “So what’s your middle name?” he asked.

  “None of your business.”

  “It can’t be worse than mine.”

  “What’s yours?”

  “If I tell you, will you tell me?”

  “Fine.”

  “Schlomo.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Your turn.”

  “Harriet.”

  “Harriet.”

  “Yep. After Harriet the Spy.”

  He made a face. “I’ve seen that movie. It wasn’t very good.”

  “It was a terrible movie! I’m talking about the book.”

  “There’s a book?”

  My mouth dropped open. “You haven’t read Harriet the Spy?”

  “I’m not much of a reader.”

  Good God. “Harriet the Spy is only the best kids’ book ever written. Louise Fitzhugh gave the world a whole new type of female protagonist. One that was feisty and opinionated and sometimes quite mean.”

  “Sounds like you.”

  “Please, you don’t even know me.”

  “I know that you have cats.”

  That gave me the creeps. “How do you know I have cats?”