Tiffany and Tiger's Eye

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

On the last day of the 1985-1986 school year, my mom told Mikey and me to pack our bags—we were spending the entire summer with Aunt Libby and Uncle Flip. Luckily, we were used to the cottage’s quirks. Even though I was sixteen years old and probably should have been super-concerned about hygiene, it didn’t bother me that there was no shower. The lake was only a five-minute walk down the gravel road, and we swam every day, rain or shine.

Anyway, it would just be the four of us. Who did I need to impress?

Mikey wasn’t as pleased about getting away from the suburbs as I was. He wanted to spend his summer playing with friends, not hanging out with his dorky older sister. What else was new? Nobody seemed all that interested in spending time with me.

My brother was different. He had a lot of friends. They lived in those gigantic houses on the other side of the bridge. I only knew that because it was my job to pick up Mikey every day after school. Sometimes, while I waited by the playground with all the moms, I hear them whispering what a “responsible young lady” I was. That always bugged me, because I could hear the pity in their voices. They felt sorry for me, and that made me wonder if they knew what life was like at our house.

Maybe they did. Maybe that’s why Mikey’s friends’ moms invited us over for dinner so often.

Most days, I bashfully brushed off the invites. If dinner wasn’t ready when my father regained consciousness after a full day of drinking, there’d be hell to pay—and I’d have to pay it, since my mom worked her second job in the evenings. During the day, she cleaned people’s houses. At night, she cleaned office buildings. Even in my sleep, I could tell when she got home at three in the morning. When she walked through the door, the whole house filled with the sharp scent of lemon cleanser. It became a perfume, of sorts, a kind of class marker that never washed off.

But there were other times, like when my dad was in rehab or when he was off trying to be a rock star, that I took the moms up on their offers. In truth, I loved going to their houses. Mikey would play with his friends while the moms brought me milk and cookies, then told me to start my homework while they got dinner going.

There was one special mom, Mrs. Kaufman, who would make a pot of tea and sit with me at her big oak table. She’d ask me about school, which all the moms did, but she’d talk to me about her life too. Nothing weird, just stories from when she was sixteen. Or she’d tell me about celebrities she met when she worked as a stewardess. That was before she got married.

After our tea break, Mrs. Kaufman would get up, brush her hands together, and say, “Well, then, Miss Rebecca, what say we start dinner?”

I’d make salad and veggies, she’d do the entrée and starch. We were a team, preparing meals together for the kids. There was something so comforting about those evenings in Mrs. Kaufman’s kitchen. We were like parents together. I was her wife and she was mine—not that women could get married. That’s just how it felt, to me.

If I had a social life I’m sure the incessant child-minding would have bothered me, but I didn’t, so it didn’t. When I was Mikey’s age I’d had as many friends as he did, but by the end of Grade 10, the whole school thought I was a freak. It didn’t take much not to fit in. Just kiss another girl.

Generally, I wasn’t drawn to high school parties. I knew there would be drinking and, God forbid, drugs. Growing up the way I did, alcohol had absolutely no appeal. It was like an anchor weighing our family down to the bottom of the ocean, keeping my father in a stupor, except when he emerged struggling and screaming.

That’s not what I wanted out of life. I wanted to be better.

But when Chloe invited me, I couldn’t say no. Chloe was one of the prettiest girls in school. She had that same hold on me as Mrs. Kaufman, except I felt free with her, like there was a chance something real might happen.

When we got to the party, I didn’t drink... but Chloe sure did. She got all giggly and wild, jumping around the basement to the Eurythmics. Chloe knew the words to every song on the radio, and her elation got inside of me, making me giddy. She’d worn white denim jeans and jacket over a fluorescent pink top. Her crimped hair was up in a high ponytail. Plastic beads bounced against her chest as she danced.

I wasn’t fancy, but I’d let my mother braid a few strands of embroidery thread into my hair just for fun. I wore my black stirrup pants and a white button-down shirt that was big enough to disguise my boobs and my butt. The outfit looked enough like Boy George to pass for fashionable, although a lot of the older kids thought I was a boy. I really only dressed that way because... well, ever since I’d started “developing,” as my mother called it, I’d felt super-self-conscious. Every night when I went to bed, I prayed that, when I woke up the next morning, my chest would be flat.

Dancing in the Street came on the radio, and the rowdy kids took the boom box outside to wake the neighbours. Everybody left the basement... except for Chloe and me. We fell into an old beanbag chair, laughing as the strobe lights flashed off the disco ball. I could barely see. So much flash and glam! But I could certainly feel Chloe’s warm body next to mine.

The basement was quiet now. The party had moved outside, where everyone was screaming along with Mick Jagger and David Bowie. I was breathing so fast I thought my lungs would explode.

Chloe’s eyes gleamed greenish-grey. Her lips were so close I felt her breath in my mouth. So close. We were so close. All I had to do was lean forward and press my lips against hers.

My brain short-circuited when we kissed. It wasn’t just me, wasn’t just my teeth parting or my tongue wrestling hers. Her hand found my thigh and she dug her fluorescent green fingernails into my flesh. It hurt, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to kiss her, kiss her forever...

The older kids crashed into the basement, laughing that the neighbours had threatened to call the cops. The tornado in me wanted to kiss Chloe again, but my sensible side won out. Cops scared me half to death, and the last thing I wanted was to be thrown in jail. My dad had told me about being beaten, strip-searched and locked up on bogus charges after protests. To me, those were scarier than ghost stories.

I got up and left the party without even saying goodbye. Not to Chloe, not to anyone.

After the weekend, everyone at school started calling me “Martina.”

They didn’t have to explain. It was just a more sophisticated way of calling me a lezzy, like the tennis star Martina Navratalova. She was one of the most famous athletes in the whole world. She was also the only out lesbian I knew of. Real-life lesbian, I mean. After that kiss with Chloe, I knew there were lesbians in my midst, and I was one of them.

No one sat next to me at lunch, or talked to me before class. Mr. Burlish had to assign me a lab partner because nobody wanted to come near me.

And Chloe was nowhere to be found. That’s what hurt the most.

By the time summer rolled around, the idea of escape was beyond bliss. Too many memories. Too much loneliness and desperation. Too much holding on by a thread. It would be nice to spend two whole months with my aunt and uncle.

Aunt Libby’s station wagon was olive green with wood panelling along the sides. It was by far the ugliest car I’d ever seen, but my heart beat faster every time it pulled into our driveway. As Uncle Flip helped Mikey and me toss our luggage in the back, my mother and my aunt stood on our crunchy brown grass and whispered.

Sometimes I felt jealous of my mother. It must be nice to have a sister.

My mom had tears in her eyes as she said goodbye. She hugged me hard, but I squirmed away. It made me uncomfortable, feeling her sharp, hard breasts pressing into my chest. Mikey was short, even for his age, and his head didn’t reach that high. Mom bent and kissed the top of his head, making her skunk-streak of grey hair all the more blatant. Why did she keep dyeing it? My mother would look pretty all grey, though I never got up the nerve to tell her so.

I didn’t look at my mother as we pulled out of the driveway. I could feel her standing there in her yellow summer knit with the big white buttons down the front. Waving goodbye.

Mikey unbuckled his belt and swung around, waving vigorously out the back window. Once we were out of range, I turned as well, because I wanted an image of her to keep in my mind. By then, it was too late.

Fishing around in my bag, I found my needlework and tightened the wooden frame. Then I dropped it in my lap and stared ahead as my vision blurred with tears.

“Dad’s gone,” Mikey said. He must have been talking to my aunt and uncle, because I obviously knew my dad hadn’t been around lately.

I blinked fast, wiping stray tears from my cheeks. We didn’t usually talk about what went on behind closed doors, but I guess with family it was okay. Aunt Libby probably knew everything anyway. She probably knew more than me.

But if she did, she didn’t let on.

“Buckle up,” she told Mikey, gazing at him in the rear-view mirror. She didn’t say anything about my dad, and neither did Uncle Flip.

“Where did he go?” Mikey asked. “My mom won’t tell me.”

I punched my brother in the arm. “Shut up, stupid.”

Uncle Flip seemed shocked by my behaviour. “Rebecca! Help your brother with his seat belt.”

Leaning across the middle seat, I grabbed the buckle and pushed the metal tongue into the little slot. I was close enough for Mikey to lean in and whisper, “Where did Dad go?”

I pulled away and sorted my embroidery floss. My current pattern was a Holly Hobbie with two old-timey girls riding an old-timey bicycle, the kind with one huge wheel at the front and two little wheels at the back. The text said Start Each Day in a Happy Way, and I couldn’t help wondering if the naughty subtext was intentional or if I just had a really dirty mind.

Mainly, I liked the pattern because it had two girls instead of a girl and a boy.

“Where did he go?” my brother asked.

I struggled not to jab his bare leg with my embroidery needle. That question irked me, not because I didn’t want to tell him, but because I didn’t know the answer.

I knotted my thread and started stitching. Part of me wanted to tell Mikey our dad was “getting better” again—my mother’s code for those rehab stints that never worked out—or I could say that his band had gone on tour, but I couldn’t speculate in front of my aunt and uncle. If they knew the truth, they’d realize I was just guessing. Then I’d feel like a stupid kid. I never liked feeling that way, even back when I was just a stupid kid.

Before long, the hum of the highway put Mikey to sleep, and I followed soon after.