Under the Dusty Moon (9 page)

“I thought you said he didn't surf.”

“Oh, no,” Mom said, “he didn't. He was actually kind of afraid of the water. Still, it's a nice thought. He would've adopted about a dozen street dogs by now.”

“Do you miss him?” I asked.

“It's hard to say. But I feel him with me. I do. Every day.”

And then it was time for Mom to leave. She and her band had been rehearsing overtime to make sure they were in their best possible shape for the road, and most nights she didn't get home until long after I'd fallen asleep.

“You know what I hear Beyoncé does before she goes on tour?” Mom asked as she packed up the last of her suitcase. Of course she'd left it until the last minute — she was leaving the next day.

“What?” I said. “Luxuriates in the aura of being powerful and perfect?”

“Of course,” Mom said. “But seriously, I hear she runs on a treadmill while singing her entire album front to back. In heels.”

“So that's why you've been spending so much time at the gym,” I said, an obvious joke. Mom had never set foot in a gym in her life. She was one of those people who are annoyingly skinny no matter what they eat.

She'd definitely been gone more than usual lately, though, which was kind of weird. She'd chalked it up to working extra shifts for Sal and practices running late, but there were nights she'd come home looking more like she'd been fooling around in some asshat's shoebox of a condo than wiping up strangers' spilled beer, and I was starting to get suspicious. This was nothing new, of course. Mom went through boyfriends at a surprising rate considering she had such a mouthy dependant, but she's never made me meet them unless it was serious, and for that I was glad, glad, glad.

“You know me,” Mom said, “I've got them buns of steel.” She stuck her butt out at me, shook it and laughed.

“A regular Jillian Michaels over here,” I said. “When's your TV show air?”

“Any day now. We'll blow those Biggest Losers out of the water with my new program:
Fork Yourself Fit
.”

“
Uh-huh
,” I said, sitting down on Mom's suitcase to help her zip it shut. It was overloaded with more clothes than she'd possibly need in Japan along with half a dozen books because apparently she was too punk rock for an
e-reader
.

“Thanks, sweets,” she said, inching the zipper around the suitcase. “Now stay with me here. Raise your fork to your mouth and chew. Good, that's one! And down to your plate — excellent! Now back up. That's two! Keep going!”

“Great plan,” I said, “I'll start working on a Fit Fork app.”

“Ooh, that's even better. Almost … aha! Done!” She did a little victory dance at having finally forced her bag closed.

“So, what time are we meeting Gran at the restaurant?” I asked as I helped Mom lift her suitcase up onto its wheels.

“Oh geez, seven at Queen Pasta,” she said, checking her wrist for a watch that wasn't there. “What time is it now?”

“Uh, six
forty-five
?” I said, pulling out my phone. “But it's close by, it's right on Queen, isn't it?”

“No,” she said, “it's one of those stupid suburban tricks. It's all the way out in Bloor West Village.” Mom was exaggerating. Gran's neighbourhood wasn't actually the suburbs, but it was far enough west of where we lived that it brought out the downtown snob in her. Which was weird considering that we hadn't even lived in Toronto that long.

“So what now?” I asked. “That'll take us at least half an hour. And Gran'll be pissed if we're late.”

“I don't know,” Mom said, sounding like a nervous little kid. Gran definitely brought that out in her.

“Jam jar?” I asked, nudging the small Mason jar sitting on our bookshelf where Mom kept her emergency money. She'd even made up a dorky label for it that said
THE
OUT-OF
-
A-JAM
JAR
.

“I guess we don't have a choice, huh?” she said. Mom was seriously stingy about dipping into the jar, especially since we'd already taken one cab ride that week, but the thought of facing Gran's wrath was enough to foil her cheapskate ways. This time, anyway.

“Not unless you've invented some way to teleport since yesterday.”

“I was so close,” Mom said, “did I tell you?”

“
Uh-huh
,” I said, grabbing my phone and jabbing her with my elbow to point her toward the door. “So what happened?”

“I think I forgot to carry the one.”

“Har har. Come on, Gran's probably already there.”

She locked the door behind us. “Do we have to?”

“Are you willing to let me stay here by myself while you're away?” I asked, walking down the stairs.

“And come home to you passed out on pills, struggling to open a jar of peanut butter? Not likely.”

Mom spotted a cab coming down Queen toward us and flagged it down.

“When are they going to make that stuff in a squeeze bottle, anyway?” I asked, opening the backseat door.

“Maybe we can use that
million-dollar
idea to pay for the next cab ride. But in the meantime,” she said, climbing in and shutting the door behind her, “we better roll.”

Despite the
jam-jar
cab ride we were still ten minutes late meeting Gran. She was already at our table with a glass of white wine in hand and a magazine opened in front of her.

“Hi, Gran,” I said, coming around to give her a hug.

“Just a minute,” she said, pointing to the article she was reading and brushing away my arm without looking up.

She stopped when her hand collided with my cast and finally looked up from her reading — some sciencey thing, from the glimpse I got of a multicolour brain scan. “What happened, Michelle?”

Naturally she asked Mom and not me. Naturally she used her full name, which no one but her ever does.

“It's nothing, Mom. Vic was just in a little accident on her bike. Tell her, honey,” Mom said, accidentally jabbing me in the arm.

“Ow,” I whined, rubbing my cast.

“Oops, sorry, sweets. Let's just sit down.”

The restaurant was a lot fancier than the places Mom and I usually ate, and I felt
self-conscious
as I sat down and tried to tuck the chair back under the table by scootching my butt forward. It scraped loudly across the floor and the couple at the table next to ours both looked up from their fettuccine to gawk at me.

“Are you all right, Victoria?” Gran asked.

“I'm fine,” I said, as much to her as to the nosy couple next to us.

“I don't like you riding your bike downtown,” Gran said. “It's dangerous. I'm surprised it's taken this long for you to get hurt.”

“Really,” I said, “I'm fine.”

I waited for Mom, the certified cycling nut of the family, to come to my aid before realizing that she was staring intently at a waiter across the room, attempting to lure him over to our table to bring her a glass of wine.

But I wouldn't let her off that easily. “Mom bikes almost every day and she's never been in an accident.”

“Oh really? I seem to remember you winding up in a cast much like this one when you were Victoria's age,” Gran said to Mom. It was like I didn't even exist for her except as a weapon to use against Mom. I couldn't believe I was going to have to stay with her while Mom was running wild all over Japan.

“Let's just drop it, okay?” Mom said as the waiter brought her psychically summoned wine to the table. “Vic's going to be off her bike for the rest of the summer, anyway, so you won't have to worry about it while she's staying with you.”

“Fine,” Gran said, clearly making an effort to bite her tongue and avoid a scene. “Shall we order?”

The meal dragged on, punctuated by four pieces of bread and butter, on top of the heaping plate of spaghetti carbonara I ordered for dinner. I figured that if I at least kept my mouth full I could avoid having to answer Gran's
mind-numbing
questions about what courses I'd be taking at school next year and try to jam the pleasure centre of my brain with carbs to trick it into thinking we were having fun.

Gran kept going on and on about this article she was reading. The one we so rudely interrupted her from when we showed up for dinner. It was something about brain chemistry and genetics, but I could barely follow her train of thought. Mom was just smiling and nodding and getting the waiter to refill her wine glass as often as she could manage.

We sorted out the details of Mom's flight and when she would drop me off at Gran's house and got the bill just as my bread binge started creeping up on me and I felt so full that I thought I might explode. Mom and Gran bickered over the cheque until Mom finally grabbed the little plastic folder with our bill in it and made a break for our waiter on the other side of the room.

“Your mother always has to make a scene,” Gran said less than quietly.

“She just wanted to do something nice before her big trip,” I said, holding my stomach with my good hand to try to stop myself from feeling nauseous.

“She should be holding on to the money she has.”

Mom came back a minute later wearing her exhausted triumph like a feathered cap. “Let's boogie.”

Outside the restaurant we said good night to Gran. I went to give her a hug, but she said, “I'll see you both tomorrow. There's no need for a big goodbye now.” So we put her in a cab home and started walking toward the subway.

“My stomach hurts,” I moaned, when Gran was finally out of earshot.

“My head hurts,” Mom said, taking my cast in her hands. “Let's go home.”

The heat wave finally broke that night and there was almost a chill in the air from the breeze coming off the lake. We piled into our apartment and collapsed onto each other on the couch. I reached out to grab the remote from the coffee table, but Mom stopped me.

“Just wait a sec,” she said. “There's something … well, there's something I've been meaning to tell you.”

“We're getting a pony?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, he can sleep in the bathroom and run wild through the expanse of our tiny apartment.”

“We'll call him Captain Buttersworth,” I said, giving a small salute.

“Yup, a real noble gentleman. But seriously, Vic. This is, well, I just want to tell you something.”

“Okay,” I said. “So no pony then?”

“Better luck next life, kiddo. This is about the trip. You remember that journalist? The one who's working on the book?”

The book. The Dusty Moon book. My mom and dad's unofficial biography.

“Right,” I said. “What was his name again?”

“It's Ken. Ken Yoshida. He's, well, he's actually going to be coming with me. With the band, I mean. But he's coming to interview me.”

“Why?” I asked. “Like he can't just interview you here?”