Connections (2020)
Jane ignored them and flipped through the program, remembering back to the afternoon, when her mom had dropped the news.
BY ANDREA COX
IMAGE BY MEAHA CAUDLE-CHOI
Jane sipped a Coke from a flimsy paper cup. It was heavy with ice and syrup. She was sitting beside her mom in the hard stadium seats. Football. Jane loved the game. The stands were full, colourful dots of humanity, all crammed in like astronauts strapped in tightly for space launch. Jane felt as though she was hovering above it all, observing: the colours, the shapes, the green of the turf. A breeze ruffled her long, dark hair, a welcome respite from the humidity. The late summer sky was a brilliant blue, the colour of the cornflowers Jane had painted in art class that afternoon at school. She smelled ketchup and dirt.
On the field, 30 rows below, the pre-game show was unfolding. Cheerleaders danced and high-kicked in unison, forming a human pyramid, their short skirts flipping. Jane wasn’t impressed. She played volleyball—a real sport. Cheerleading wasn’t a real sport.
“Want some popcorn?” Ron’s voice boomed from the aisle seat, on the other side of her mother.
This was supposed to be a mother-daughter thing, but her mom had brought him—her new boyfriend. He pushed a bag of popcorn in Jane’s direction.
“No,” Jane glared. “I have my own.”
Her paper popcorn bag sat propped in her lap, tilted to one side, dotted with greasy blobs, like wet dark grey clouds on a white sky. Jane’s stomach rumbled. They had missed dinner in the rush to get here. She reached in and crammed a handful into her mouth, choking on the stale, oily taste.
Jane couldn’t stand Ron. There was something hidden behind his handsome face, something dark, something that made Jane’s skin crawl. She watched his black eyes as they followed the girls on the field.
Her mom was her everything. It didn’t matter that Jane was 13. She loved spending time with her mom. They were tight—Gilmore Girls tight. They did everything together. Their favourite thing was to build a blanket fort on the couch, snuggle in, and gorge on Netflix—Grey’s Anatomy, Bones, Gilmore Girls. And they loved musicals—The Sound of Music, Mamma Mia!, you name it. They could sing each and every song. They were both tall and slim and had the same sense of boho-chic style, often borrowing each other’s clothes.
Jane’s mom was laughing at something Ron had said. Her face was shining; there was a lightness that drifted from her when she was around him.
Jane liked how Ron made her mom laugh. That’s why she tolerated him. That’s why she never said anything. Never rocked the boat.
Jane ignored them and flipped through the program, remembering back to the afternoon, when her mom had dropped the news.
***
“But honey, I haven’t seen him in a while. And he really wants to spend time with you, with us,” her mom had said, when she had picked Jane up from school. She was excited to hang out with her mom, but her stomach lurched.
Jane was wearing a new shirt. She’d worn it to school. It was white and cotton and barely grazed the top of her ripped jeans, just slightly exposing her midriff. She felt grown up in it. She knew she was pretty, but she was uncomfortable with it, uncomfortable with the new sensation of men’s eyes on her. Not that she wasn’t used to attracting attention. She attracted people. Her best friend Kate was always teasing her for being the most popular girl in grade nine.
Everyone wanted to talk to her. Except for Geoff. He sat in front of her in English class. He liked to wear white pressed shirts. He was shy, and kind, with ruffled blond hair and a crooked smile. While their teacher rattled on about narrative arc and proper essay format, and the other kids in the class texted each other notes, she doodled with a black ballpoint pen on his shirt.
Geoff had pretended to be angry after she had drawn two very pretty sunflowers on his left shoulder. He couldn’t see them of course, but she could. When class ended and everyone saw them, it was as though she had scorched her brand on him, and now he somehow belonged to her. But he didn’t say anything to the teacher. He didn’t complain. He never asked to be moved. That’s how she knew that he liked her.
She sometimes wished that Geoff would notice her, really look at her, like a man looked at a woman when he loved her. Like her dad used to look at her mom.
Jane’s dad had been gone for two years and she missed him every day. She missed everything about him—the way he would crack silly jokes to make her laugh when she was sad, the way he sung Bruce Springsteen in the car, his kind blue eyes that made him look like he was always smiling. The day they buried him was the worst day of her life—the deep brown casket being lowered into the earth, her mom’s sobs drowning out the howling of the winter winds, white snowflakes swirling around her as she shivered in her black wool coat.
And now, there was Ron.
***
“I’m slipping off to the ladies room. Do you want to come?” asked her mom, gently nudging Jane’s shoulder.
“I’m okay, Mom. I don’t want to miss the start of the game.”
Ron watched as her mom shuffled past him and up the stairs to the exit. When she was out of sight, he slid closer to Jane into the seat beside her. He smiled at her, eyes crinkling at the corners. His face was tan, and his white, straight teeth gleamed like a model from a billboard, the ones she had seen plastered on the sides of the glass-sheathed skyscrapers downtown.
“Better view from here,” he said, patting Jane’s denim clad knee.
His hand lingered. Jane’s stomach leapt.
She turned to look at him and smiled weakly. She ran her tongue back and forth over her chipped front tooth, feeling the roughness, the sharpness of its edges.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, his hand still idling on her knee, softly stroking the soft blue material.
Jane flinched and Ron pulled his hand away. He kept his eyes on her and grinned, flashing his perfect teeth. She pressed her chipped tooth harder into her tongue, the pain sending shivers up her spine. She tasted blood, metallic like a mouthful of copper pennies.
“The lineup was crazy. I’ll wait until later.” Her mom’s voice cleaved the silence. Ron got up to let her in. She plunked down beside Jane, in the seat where Ron had just been.
“You look a little pale sweetie, you okay?”
Jane swallowed. The acrid, warm wetness of the blood trickled down her throat. Her mom reached over and gently tucked a few wayward strands of Jane’s waist-length hair behind her ear and kissed her temple. Jane forced a close-lipped smile, her eyes glazed, blanketing the truth.
“Yeah. I’m good, Mom,” she quietly replied.
“Please stand for the national anthem” the announcer’s deep voice echoed on the speaker.
As she stood, Jane pulled at her top, the woven cotton soft in her hands. It wouldn’t stay down, it kept riding up. She felt exposed, bare, a little girl.
She felt Ron’s eyes on her.
Jane gazed down at the stadium floor, its cracked grey concrete littered with an empty mustard packet, a puddle of brownish-yellow oozing out, like a tube of paint.
She shivered.
Geoff. Her world, her school. It all seemed so distant.
As the final words of the anthem floated through the air, fireworks exploded like gunshots, sending cascades of colour across the sky. Red. Pop. Indigo. Pop. Cobalt. Pop. Gold. Pop. Pop. Pop. Her mom was laughing, snuggled into Ron’s shoulder, looking skyward and pointing at the sparkling arcs of light.
A marching band was making its way across the field, like a field of wheat waving in the wind, drums banging, cymbals crashing. Jane scooped a handful of popcorn into her mouth.
Her mom was all she had.
Exhaling slowly, Jane lowered herself into the plastic stadium seat. The shrill tone of the ref’s whistle sounded, piercing through the air like a siren and she waited for the first play to light up the field.
Andrea is a Toronto-based freelance writer and editor who is passionate about architecture, design, urban planning, sustainability, travel, food, wine and everything that makes the world a better place. In her spare time, she writes fiction and creative non-fiction, plays the flute and enjoys sharing moments with family and friends. She is currently penning a novel.
Image: Meaha Caudle-Choi, Connections, digital photograph, 2020.
Edited for publication by Amy Ladouceur, as part of the Professional Writing and Communications Program.
The HLR Spotlight is a collaboration between the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Innovative Learning at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario. This project is funded by Applied Research & Innovation.