Under the Dusty Moon (16 page)

“How were Iron Man 1 and Iron Man 2?” I asked, as we settled into her parents' office.

“Ugh, don't remind me,” Lucy said. “I hate babysitting.”

“And it was just you and your little cousins?” I asked, impressed that her parents had trusted her to supervise.

“My cousin Eric was there, too. He's
twenty-five
, but he still lives at home. So technically he was the adult, I guess, but I was the one doing all the work. Those kids are disgusting.”

“That sucks,” I said. “Why were your parents out of town?”

“It's my grandma. They had to help her move out of her house and into an old folks' home.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Yeah. I guess cleaning her house out took them a lot longer than they thought. It's all piled up here now, that's why our house is such a mess.”

“It's not that bad,” I said. “Anyway, it's not any worse than our place is.”

“True,” said Lucy, “but I'm still hoping we can get rid of this stuff soon.”

“For sure,” I said. “Oh! I almost forgot to tell you. Shaun got us tickets to Fan Con!”

“Whoa,” she said, “he paid for your pass?”

“Not all four days, just for the Saturday. Still, I'm so excited!”

“That's still a lot of money,” Lucy pointed out. “He must be expecting something pretty big in return.”

“It's not like that,” I said, “It was a birthday present. Why are you being weird about this?”

“Sorry,” she said, “whatever. It's cool. We can all hang out together on Saturday.”

“Totally,” I said, as I mentally calculated the odds of Shaun getting along with Lucy and her friends. They weren't great.

“Anyway,” Lucy said, turning on her parents' computer and tapping the monitor, “let me show you your birthday present.”

“Huh?” I said, as she pulled up Twine and loaded our game. It looked different than I remembered. She'd added a goofy drawing to the first page.

“It's finished!” Lucy said proudly.

But my face was stuck in neutral. “Oh,” I said. “Cool.”

“Check it out,” Lucy said. “I added art and everything. Behold
Castle Forkenstein
!”

I started to click through. The illustrations that Lucy had added were kind of cheesy, but it was cool that she'd figured out how to put them in. “But how did you do this from your aunt's place?” I asked. “I thought we could only works on the game from here?”

“I just installed Twine on her computer and transferred the file,” Lucy said. “It was easy. But, anyway, do you like it? Isn't it great?”

It was cool seeing the game finished, but it really wasn't what I'd had in mind when we started. Lucy had made the game funny.
Castle Forkenstein
was about finding recipes in the deserted manor of a vampire chef. But I'd wanted to tell a ghost story. A real one. And I'd wanted to be the one to illustrate it. Though, admittedly, I'd never mentioned that to Lucy.

“It's cute,” I said. “But weren't we going to make it, you know, scary?”

“Funny is better,” Lucy said, “we'll stand out this way. Plus, it's about food, so we can totally present it at the next She Shoots social.”

“Huh?”

“I texted you about it. The social's where people give presentations about the games they've made. So since their game jam was all about food, I figured this would fit right in! I've already emailed them to ask.”

“But that's not, like, the game I wanted to make,” I said. “That's not what we've been working on.”

“I just kind of figured you weren't interested anymore since you started ignoring my texts. So I, like, gave it a makeover. And besides, projects like this change all the time.”

She was right that I'd been ignoring her, but I was still disappointed. And she was acting so weird about Shaun having bought my Con ticket — what, like it automatically meant that I owed him sex or something? And it seemed kind of soon for her to be showing off the game. It still looked pretty sloppy. I clicked through some more and bit my tongue.

“Did you see?” Lucy asked. “When you get to the end, you collect all the recipes into a cookbook called
Mastering the Art of Undead Cooking
. Isn't that funny? It's so much better this way.”

“I guess,” I said, gathering ammunition. “But you shouldn't have changed the whole thing around without telling me. We were supposed to be doing this together.”

“Please,” Lucy said, “you've barely even helped me since you started dating Shaun.”

“Because you were out of town!” I said, exasperated. “How was I supposed to help you when you were all the way in Richmond Hill?”

“There are buses, you know,” Lucy said. “Or how else did you and Shaun keep hanging out?”

She was right, of course, but it wasn't as if she'd even invited me up to her aunt's house. Was I supposed to read her mind?

“I have a boyfriend, okay?” I said, still mad that I had to defend myself. “It's normal to be in, like, a love bubble for a little while.”

“So stay in your bubble then,” Lucy said. “Just don't expect me to be there when it pops.”

“Whatever,” I said, “enjoy your game.”

“Thanks,” Lucy said, the word hung with icicles. “I will.”

I walked myself out as Lucy turned back to the monitor. Her mom was in the living room as I came downstairs, and she looked confused to see me leaving so soon after I'd arrived.

“Everything all right, Victoria?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said. “It's nothing.”

A
nd
then Mom came home. She took a cab from the airport right to Gran's, leaving her bandmates to ferry the gear back to their rehearsal space, which she swore was no big deal but which I'm sure annoyed the hell out of them. She rang the doorbell about a dozen times before I made it down the stairs to answer it, and before I'd even opened the door all the way, she'd somehow knocked me to the ground in what was probably the Guinness record for World's Biggest Hug/Wrestling Hold.

“Hey, Mom,” I said, with the tiny amount of air left in my lungs from her
industrial-strength
embrace. “Nice to see you, too.”

“Eeee! I missed you! I missed you so, so much!” she said, finally letting me up for air. “And you too, Mom.” I hadn't even heard Gran sneak up behind us. Then again, Mom had had my head pinned to the floor in her
finally-back
-
in-the
-country hug/wrestling hold, so it was understandable that my hearing had been somewhat muffled. It was kind of ridiculous. Exactly how big a hug was she going to give me when she got back from being in Europe for a month and a half? Still, it felt good.

“Hi,” Gran said. “It's nice to have you back. And I'm sure Victoria is ecstatic that she'll get to go home now.”

“Oh, come on, Gran,” I said, putting my good arm around her shoulder, “it wasn't that bad.”

“Oh really?” she said. “I could have sworn that I'd interned you here against your will.” She cracked a small smile. This was
hands-down
the closest I'd ever seen Gran come to telling a joke. Which was actually pretty cool, never mind the fact that it wasn't even remotely funny.

“Most prisoners don't get waffles,” I said.

“Of course not,” she volleyed, “you wouldn't want them getting fat.”

I offered her a snide smile. It really wasn't like staying with Gran had been so bad, in the end. She'd mostly just let me do whatever I wanted, which was kind of ideal.

“Huh,” Mom said, “when did you two become besties? You trying to give me a run for my money, Mom?”

“It's hardly fair for you to insult me just for getting along with my granddaughter,” Gran said. And just as quickly as her sense of humour had appeared, it vanished back into the shadows again.

“Ah good, back to normal,” Mom said. “Come on, honey, go grab your stuff. Let's go home.”

“Okay,” I said, “just give me a sec.”

I went upstairs and jammed the last of my stuff into my backpack before I hauled it back down the stairs to say goodbye to Gran.

“It was nice having you stay with me, Victoria,” Gran said, as I struggled down the last few steps.

“Yeah,” I said, “it was all right. Thanks, Gran.”

I went in for a hug, but Gran grabbed at the
half-roll
of Halls in her pocket. “My cough,” she said. “I don't want to get you sick.”

“Oh, come on,” I said, pulling her in for a reluctant squeeze.

Mom stood by the door. “Wow,” she said, “I wasn't anticipating such a Disney goodbye.”

“Shut up, Mom,” I said, annoyed that she wasn't allowing me to have a moment with Gran when she was the reason that I'd had to stay with her in the first place.

Gran snapped me out of the hug and scolded, “You do not talk to your mother that way.”

“Okay, whatever, goodbye,” I said, grabbing my backpack and dragging it through the doorway. It took another ten minutes for Mom and Gran to stop bickering long enough that Mom and I could hail a cab to take us home.

Back at the apartment we both heaved our overstuffed luggage up the stairs, only to be hit with blistering heat when we opened the door.

“I guess we better start running the AC, eh?” Mom said, locking up behind us. “This is one thing I didn't miss about being away.”

“What, our apartment?” I asked, as I flopped down on the couch, my backpack abandoned by the door.

“No, dummy, I mean this sticky heat.”

“Oh yeah, because everything's better in Japan, right?” I said. I was definitely trying to pick a fight, but why?

“Nooo,” she said, stretching out the vowel, “but at least our hotel rooms were nice and cool. Not like this dump.” She plopped herself down beside me. “How's that arm doing? About time for them to rip that cast off, isn't it?”

“Two more weeks,” I said, getting up. I picked up my bag and started dragging it toward my room.

“That's it?” Mom called. “I thought I was the
jet-lagged
one.”

“I'm just tired, that's all. I'm going to go take a nap.” I started to close the door behind me.

“Fine by me,” Mom said. “I could use one, too. You want to go out for dinner tonight?”

“What,” I called through the closed door, “for sushi?”

“Har har. How about Hungary Thai?”

“Sure,” I said, “fine.”

“I missed you too, sweetheart!” she yelled loudly enough that probably half the block could hear her.

“Ugh, whatever,” I said, before crashing out for some
much-needed
sleep in my own bed.

A couple of hours later, Mom came knocking at my door.

“Vic, I'm starving. Let's head out.”

I checked my phone. “Mom, it's, like,
four-thirty
, how can you be hungry for dinner?”

“My brain still thinks it's six in the morning,” she said. “Let's just go, okay? I'm dying.”

“You poor thing,” I said, opening my door.

She was wearing a giant Hello Kitty
T-shirt
, and held out an identical shirt for me. “Look what I brought you!”

“You're kidding, right? You could have bought these shirts at the Dufferin Mall,” I said, naming the slightly
off-brand
shopping mecca near our place.

“But I didn't,” she said. “These are the real thing.”

“You don't actually expect us to wear matching shirts to dinner, do you?”

“Oh, come on,” she said. “It'll be fun! I've been away all this time — I thought you'd be into it.”

Was it me trying to pick a fight, or was it her not listening to me? It pissed me off that she made me feel like it was my fault, but seriously, matching Hello Kitty
T-shirts
? What was I, five?

“Thanks,” I said, taking the shirt from her. “But I'm not wearing it to dinner.”

“Fine,” she said, obviously disappointed, “have it your way. Can we just go?”

“All right. I'd hate to have you dying of starvation on my conscience.”

I spent the streetcar ride over to the restaurant trying to force myself to calm down and be more patient while Mom rattled on about all the little things about Toronto that she'd missed, as if she'd been gone for years and not a couple of weeks. I told myself that it was just me being tired and she didn't mean to be so annoying. She was just trying to make up for lost time. Still, her enthusiasm for every tiny thing we saw was grating.

We ordered our usual at the restaurant, and with a glass of white wine in her hand she finally started to relax. “So it's been good for you, spending some time on your own, hasn't it?”

“Yeah,” I said, eyeing a couple with heads of matching dreadlocks strolling down the sidewalk hand in hand, “actually I think it has.”

“And you don't resent me too much for leaving?”

“Whatever, Mom. You're back now. It's fine.”

“Yeah?” she said, taking a sip and then putting down her wine glass.”You've been acting kind of weird since I got back.”

“Well so have you,” I said. “Why are you bouncing off the walls? Aren't you, like, super
jet-lagged
?”

“Yeah,” she said, taking another big sip, “I am. I feel awful. Just completely run down. But you know, I wanted to come back and jump right back into things being normal.”

“
Uh-huh
?” I said, raising an eyebrow. Well, more like raising both of them, since I've never been able to pull off that particular move.

“Okay, okay,” she said holding out her hands in front of me, “I overdid it. So sue me.”

“Believe me, I'm pretty sure matching Hello Kitty
T-shirts
count as child abuse.”

“Yup, Children's Aid'll be on me in a minute, I'm sure. Which'll give you more time to spend with Shaun. How's he doing, anyway?” Damn, she was good.

“He's fine,” I said, sipping at my own glass of Coke. “He's good.”

“Oh really? So what'd you guys do for your birthday?”

“We, uh, saw a movie,” I said.

“Oh yeah? And how did it end?” she asked, waggling her own eyebrows. Of course she could do it. She was a
raised-eyebrow
grand champion.

“Quit it!” I said, slapping her arm with my napkin. “We had a nice time.”

“Uh huh. And …? Did he get you a present?”

“Yeah, he got me — he got us — two tickets to Fan Con next week.”

“Wow,” she said, “big spender!”

“Quit it. It's not like that.”

“Quit what? This is great! I'm glad at least one of us is going to marry rich. I've finally got a retirement plan!”

I gave her the most withering stare I could manage.

“I'm kidding, sweets. That's great. I'm so glad you're going to get to go.”

“Thank you,” I said carefully, “I'm excited.”

“You should be,” Mom said, a little too enthusiastically. “You've got a hot date for the nerd ball!”

It was all a joke to her, wasn't it?

“Shut up,” I said, “it's not like that. I mean, yeah, it's nerdy. But it's, like, cool nerdy.”

“Oh no, Vic, is Shaun a nerd?” Her face fell faux-dramatically. “Does he wear
taped-up
glasses and have a pocket protector?” She took another big sip of wine. “Oh my god, is he a Trekkie?”

“Mom! Just quit it, okay?”

“Wow,” she said, “you really like this guy, huh? You gonna have a
million-dollar
Star Trek
–themed wedding? You can carry a bouquet of phasers, set to stunning!” She laughed wildly at her own joke, and, as per usual, the other tables around us started to stare.

“I'm never telling you anything again,” I said, as the waiter — the same one as always, did he never have a day off? — brought over our food.

“Aw, come on, you love me,” she said, her mouth already stuffed with food. “You looove me.”

“Not right now,” I said, digging into my schnitzel. “You're lucky I don't turn you in to Children's Aid this second.

“You're so kind and understanding,” she said. “You certainly don't get that from me.”

“
Uh-huh
,” I said, swallowing a giant mouthful of fried meat. It tasted unbelievably good. I'd missed coming here. “So what's the deal with you and the leech?”

“The leech?” Mom asked.

“This journalist guy you've been spending so much time with,” I said. “What's the deal?”

“No deal. He wanted to interview me.”

“Mom, I think we're about fifteen steps beyond this by now. He went to Japan with you, and you guys did weird touristy stuff together. Clearly there's something going on.”

“Okay,” she said, putting down her fork. “So what do you want to know?”

“Are you guys, like, dating?” I asked.

“I don't know. Maybe?” she said, draining her glass and signalling to our waiter for another one.

“Seriously?” I knew the answer before I'd even asked the question, but hearing her confirm my suspicions sank my heart like a cinder block.

“Honestly, I think you'd really like Ken. I think you will like him, once you get to know him.”

“I have to meet him?” I asked.

“Well, I mean, eventually.”

“So it's serious?”

“It's hard to say. It was kind of intense spending that much time together, travelling.”

“What about the band?” I said. “Weren't you kind of busy rehearsing and playing shows and all that?” She was acting like she'd gone off to Japan just to be with him, like it hadn't been for the music at all.

“Of course, sweets, of course. But even still, Ken and I spent a lot of time together.”

“Did you ever think that maybe he was just using you to get more material for his book?”

“Well, sure,” Mom said. “I mean, that is how we met.”

“And that doesn't make you just a bit, like, totally creeped out?”

“What, why creeped out?”

“He's just a fanboy, Mom!” I said, fighting to keep my voice down and losing. “How old is he even?”

“
Thirty-three
.”

“So he's, like, five years younger than you? That's weird. That's totally weird.”

“No,” Mom said, accepting her second glass of wine from our waiter, “not really. Not when you're my age.”