Lucy Unstrung Read online

  To my daughter, Susan.

  You were always on my mind.

  one

  When my mom finally walks in the door at nine-fifteen, she acts like nothing’s wrong at all.

  “Where have you been?” I ask. “Dad and I have been worried sick. And now Grandma’s upset too.”

  “What are you talking about? You knew I was going to my pilates class. What’s Grandma upset about?”

  “We were worried because it’s dark out and no one knew where you were.”

  It’s me who’s doing the talking, but Mom looks right past me and glares at Dad.

  “Who called my mother?”

  “I thought you might have dropped in there,” he says. “You were later than you usually are.”

  “You wouldn’t like it if I got home this late,” I say.

  “Maybe that’s because you’re only thirteen. I’m twenty-eight. There’s supposed to be a difference.”

  “I don’t see why. Grandma always tells me it’s important to be dependable. If you aren’t and no one knows when you’re going to show up, you could get raped, murdered, and thrown into a ditch, and your family would just think you were late again. No one would even call the police.”

  “Like I could be so lucky,” she says.

  “I just got worried when you weren’t home by nine o’clock,” Dad says. “I mean, the gym is only a five-minute drive from here and I knew the class was over at eight. I allowed twenty minutes for you to shower and change …”

  “Gina and I went to Starbucks for a coffee. So call the cops, get together a search party, or just shoot me – I don’t care! But don’t call my mother!”

  “Starbucks?” Dad says. “What did you have?”

  “Coffee. Just a regular coffee.”

  “They call it a tall, I think.”

  “Who cares what they call it?”

  Mom is raising her voice again. I don’t know why she gets all twisted out of shape about Dad making a simple observation like that.

  “You know,” he says. “The tall at Starbucks is twelve ounces and it’s expensive. You can get a sixteen-ounce coffee at McDonald’s or A&W for just over a dollar.”

  “What did I do to deserve this?” my mom wails.

  “Grandma says it’s always better to bring friends home, and I bet it would be even cheaper if you’d waited till you got back here to have coffee,” I say.

  “One little mistake when I’m fourteen and my whole life is ruined. I don’t know what’s worse: being married to a walking spreadsheet or being doomed to live with a doppelgänger of my mother.”

  “What’s a doppelgänger?”

  “Look it up in the dictionary,” she says.

  I want to tell her it would be much faster if she’d just tell me herself, but she goes stomping out of the kitchen and heads upstairs.

  I get the dictionary.

  “How would you spell that?” I ask Dad.

  “Pretty much the way it sounds,” Dad says. “D-o-p-p-e-l-g-a-n-g-e-r.”

  I find the word. It means a ghostly likeness or double of a living person.

  Dad is back at the computer, where he’s entering the money Mom spent on the coffee in to an accounting program he uses to keep track of all our finances. Once a week, he prints out a copy so he and Mom can discuss money. The printout is called a spreadsheet. I think my mom was calling Dad a walking spreadsheet because he hardly needs this software to keep track of spending. He could probably keep it all in his head. He has a very good memory for figures.

  “Why did she call me a double of Grandma?” I ask. “I don’t think we look anything alike.”

  Dad looks up at me from the computer screen. “No, Lucy, I don’t think that’s what she meant. It’s just that you quote your grandma so much that sometimes it feels like she’s living here. You know how your mom and grandma tend to lock horns now and then. I think it upsets her when you remind her of what your grandma would say all the time.”

  It isn’t until later, when I’m in bed, that I start wondering if she really meant what she said about how a mistake she made when she was fourteen – getting pregnant with me – has wrecked her life. My mother was fifteen when I was born. She got pregnant in Grade 9 because there were no Catholic high schools in Surrey in those days, and she had to go to a public school. My mom was very innocent and unworldly, and the supervision at that high school just wasn’t what it should have been. Grandma explained that part to me. My mother says that her class went on a ski trip to Mt. Seymour. She’d never been skiing before and her clothes weren’t warm enough. By lunchtime, she was shivering with cold. One of the ski instructors, a handsome exchange student from Sweden, felt sorry for her. He invited her to come and sit in his car. He said he’d turn the heater on and it would be way warmer than the drafty old lodge where everyone else was having lunch. Mom says his English wasn’t very good and that she had trouble understanding him. She never really gets much beyond that in her explanation. Even if his English was bad and she was innocent, unworldly, and very cold, you’d think she might have clued in at least in time to avoid getting pregnant.

  I imagine it was a bit of a shock when my mom, my grandparents, and finally everyone in the neighborhood, the school, and our parish discovered that I was on the way. But it all turned out okay. Her life’s not ruined. Still, when she said those words, it made me feel kind of guilty. Maybe it’s because I’m Catholic.

  If you’re Catholic, you don’t have to actually do anything to be guilty. We believe in original sin. It all goes back to Adam and Eve. When they ate that apple, they brought sin into the world, so now we inherit sin along with our DNA. That’s why we baptize babies. Baptism washes away this original sin. But that isn’t the end of it. Even after baptism, the tendency to be willful and disobedient clings like an old habit. I imagine it’s like smoking or biting your nails: really hard to break. Watch any two year old having a tantrum in the supermarket. You just know that when God finished making people and, the Bible says, “He saw that it was good,” this wasn’t at all what He had in mind.

  I’m lying there thinking about it when Dad sticks his head into my room to ask if he can borrow my extra pillow. For some reason, he’s decided to sleep on the couch.

  “Do you think Mom meant it when she said I wrecked her life?” I ask.

  “No, of course not,” he says. “She’s just blowing off steam.”

  I think he’s probably right, so I don’t think too much more about it just then. It isn’t until later, when she starts wrecking my life, that I realize maybe she did mean it, and she’s just been waiting all these years for a chance to seek revenge.

  two

  It starts first thing in the morning. How am I supposed to sleep with her vacuuming right outside my bedroom door? I cover my head with my pillow. The next thing I know, she’s yanking my blankets off.

  “Come on, Lucy. It’s time to get up. I’ve got plans today.”

  I try to pull the blankets back up. “Who cares?” I’m still sleepy. “It’s hard on a kid when parents fight all night, you know.”

  “It’s been eleven hours since anyone said a word in this house,” she says. “Get up. I want to get these sheets in the wash.”

  I swing my feet over the side of the bed and she kicks my slippers toward me. She’s already pulling at my sheets, and if I don’t get off the bed, she’ll probably pull me onto the floor when she gives them that final tug.

  I get up and start for the door.

  “Take these down to the laundry room,” she says.

  “Why should I have to do everything just because you’re in a bad mood?”

  “You think I’m in a bad mood? You’ve seen nothing! Don’t give me any more grief or I’ll show you what a bad mood really looks like.” She
flings the sheets at me. “Take your laundry basket too.”

  If looks could kill, my mother would be dead; I am so mad at her. But she doesn’t even see me. She’s busy making up my bed with clean sheets.

  I stomp downstairs and throw the laundry basket onto the floor next to the washer. It tips onto its side and some of the clothes spill out. I don’t care.

  I head for the kitchen. There’s absolutely no sign of breakfast. The coffeepot is empty, the toaster’s been put away, and I notice there are places on the floor that are still wet from mopping. She’s cleaned up the kitchen without even thinking about me or the fact that I just might want something to eat. The weekend paper is on the table, so I grab the Life section, which is my favorite one. I can hear my mom vacuuming again. I wish she’d hurry up.

  She doesn’t usually stay mad so long. Grandma always tells Dad and me just to ignore Mom’s bad moods. Usually that works fine. She gets over them and everything goes back to normal until the next time something sets her off.

  I hear the thump of the vacuum as she pulls it down a step or two on the stairs. It would be easier for her if we had a built-in system. They are much quieter, so she could vacuum without waking me up. Her birthday is coming up in a couple of months. I’ll talk to Dad about it.

  I wander out to the hall and watch as she finishes the stairs and hauls our old canister vacuum to the closet in the laundry room.

  “Where’s Dad?” I ask.

  “He took the van in for servicing.”

  “What’s for breakfast?”

  “I had half a bagel with peanut butter,” she says.

  “But what am I supposed to have?”

  “You can have the other half, if you want.”

  She’s not really paying attention to me. She’s started sorting laundry as if I’m not even there.

  “But I don’t want a bagel.”

  “Well, go find something you do want then.”

  “Aren’t you going to fix anything for me?”

  She stops what she’s doing and turns to face me. “What is it you’d like?”

  “Just cereal. Oh, and maybe some juice.”

  “Do you know where the cereal is?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you think you could be very grown up and pour some in a bowl for yourself?”

  I’m about to tell her I don’t appreciate her sarcasm when the phone rings.

  “I bet that’s Grandma,” I say. “She’s probably wondering if you ever did come home.”

  “I phoned your grandma last night. I don’t think she’ll be calling back any time real soon.”

  Mom walks into the kitchen and grabs the phone. I can tell almost as soon as she picks it up that it’s Gina. Mom always sounds different when she talks to Gina. For one thing, she starts complaining right away, saying that she can’t wait to get out of this house.

  Mom met Gina at her pilates class. It was before Christmas, maybe four months ago. Since then, they’ve been seeing way too much of each other. I listen to Mom’s side of the conversation. It sounds like the “plans” that were her excuse for waking me from a sound sleep involve going somewhere with Gina. Why am I not surprised?

  “Where are you going? Can I come?” I ask as soon as she hangs up.

  “If you don’t even know where I’m going, what makes you think you’d want to come?”

  “Well, I might.”

  “Well, you can’t. It wouldn’t be interesting for you. Gina and I are just going to drive around to some stores to see if we can find some packing boxes for her.”

  “She’s moving?”

  Maybe this is good news, even if I can’t go with them.

  “Yes, she’s selling her apartment and moving in with Ian.”

  “But they aren’t married!”

  “Get used to it. It’s called the real world.”

  “Grandma would have a heart attack if she heard you say that!”

  “She didn’t hear me say that, did she? So if you don’t go tattling, she should live.”

  No one listening to my mom talk like this would ever guess that she works at Cenacle Heights Convent. You’d think that with her spending so much time with all those holy old nuns, some of the good influence would rub off on her. It probably would if she wasn’t hanging around with Gina and picking up all these bad attitudes.

  Gina is even older than my mom, but the trouble with her is that she has no responsibilities. She must have a job of some kind, but after work, all she does is go to pilates classes and go out for coffee. On weekends, she goes to clubs and parties. I know this because once Gina showed Mom and me some pictures and there was one of her and Ian at a nightclub. She had on this low-cut red dress that showed way more of her boobs than was proper, and she was sitting on Ian’s lap. If Grandma had seen it, she’d have said Gina looked like a floozy. My mother’s not that type at all. Until she met Gina, she used to spend all her evenings at home with me and Dad. She reads a lot. We all do.

  Mom and I are still standing there by the phone when I hear my dad let himself in the door that comes from the garage.

  “Kate,” he calls. “I need your car keys.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m taking your car in for servicing.”

  “You didn’t tell me you’d made an appointment.”

  “Didn’t I? It must have slipped my mind.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she says. “I’ll take the van. We can use the extra room. I’m helping Gina find moving boxes.”

  “I left the van at the shop.”

  “How did you get home?”

  “One of the boys who works at the mechanic’s gave me a lift.”

  “So you’re telling me both vehicles will be at the service station all morning?”

  She’s not yelling or anything, but her lips are tight and thin.

  “That’s how I planned it, yeah. It’s more efficient to do them both at the same time. Otherwise I’m left hanging around down there for two mornings.”

  “Wonderful!” Mom says. “And of course you never considered the possibility that I might have plans of my own?”

  “Well, you don’t usually go anywhere Saturday mornings,” he says. “You didn’t mention going out …”

  “Mom,” I interrupt him, “Why can’t you just use Gina’s car?”

  “Thank you so much for that suggestion, Lucy. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  I don’t know why she didn’t – probably because she was looking for some excuse to start another fight.

  She digs around in her purse. When she finds her keys, she flings them at Dad and storms off. She takes the phone with her.

  I follow her upstairs. She goes into her room but doesn’t close the door. She leans against the dresser and punches in a number. I just stand there in the doorway, watching her.

  “Gina, you’re going to have to come and get me. I’m not allowed to have my car today.” She’s quiet for a minute and then she says, “You can leave her here with Lucy.”

  I’m startled. I come into the room and start waving my arms around. Excuse me! Who’s she leaving with me? Don’t I even get consulted? I don’t want to stay here with a total stranger. I’m not the kind of person who makes friends easily.

  “Sure,” she says. “See you in half an hour then.” She hangs up.

  I’m bursting. “Who are you leaving with me?”

  “Lucy,” she answers.

  This makes no sense.

  “Lucy is Gina’s dog. You’ll like her.”

  “Gina named her dog Lucy?”

  “Yes, funny coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “What sort of a name is that for a dog?”

  “I don’t think it’s that unusual,” she says.

  “But Lucy’s a people name. Dogs should have dog names like Fido, or Buster, or Rover, or King … There are lots of good dog names.”

  “Those are all names for male dogs. Lucy’s a female.”

  My mind goes blank. I can’t think of any gi
rl dog names. “But Dad’s at the garage. I thought you’d drop me off at Grandma’s. I don’t want to be all alone here.”

  “You won’t be. Lucy will keep you company.”

  “But I don’t know anything about dogs.”

  “What’s to know? She’ll probably sleep most of the time. A bunch of realtors are going through Gina’s apartment today, and she’s afraid that having all those strangers there will upset Lucy.”

  “Why don’t you take her with you?”

  “If she’s left alone in the car, she chews things.”

  “If you leave her here, I’ll be the thing she chews. Dogs hate me. I told you about how that one in the house at the end of the cul-de-sac attacked me. I can’t even go down to that end of the street now.”

  “What are you talking about? You’ve never been bitten by a dog.”

  “No, but he tried. He barked like he’d lost his mind, and then he slammed into the fence so hard that I thought it would break and he’d come right through it.”

  “Sounds very dramatic,” Mom says. “That would be that high fence with the solid panels, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you didn’t actually see the dog.”

  “No, but …”

  “Anyway, you don’t have to worry about Lucy crashing through any fences. She’s just a wee bit of a thing. Trust me. You two will get along fine.”

  I’m not convinced. I’m still worrying about it when the doorbell rings and Gina walks in without waiting for anyone to answer. She does this all the time. She just barges in like she owns the place. But today I have more to be concerned about than her bad manners.

  I’m looking at her dog. I thought it would be something like a poodle or one of those little mop dogs. It’s not.

  She has long, soft, reddish-blonde-colored fur that parts in the middle of her back and sweeps down her sides, straight as can be. It’s layered a bit toward the ends. It looks more like human hair than like fur. As a matter of fact, it looks just like my hair. Mine is the same color and it’s parted in the middle too. My hair’s so fine and straight that hairdressers always layer the ends to give it a bit of a lift. The dog is small like my mom said, but she’s slimmer than I was expecting. I’m small too, and on the skinny side.