Saving Francesca

“Your father doesn’t wake up in the morning and see the world through gray-colored glasses. Antidepressants aren’t the only answer, but they’ll get her on her feet, and from there, she has to take over.”

“She doesn’t even take Tylenol,” I begin.

“And I saw the plate of food you had in there for her,” she continues, as if I haven’t spoken. “You don’t give a starving person a feast. It’ll kill her. Begin simply.”

I know she’s trying to be kind, but Sue is practical. She treats everyone like an adult, except for my father, who she treats like a child.

“Has she lost her job?” I ask.

“No. But her job is the last thing on her mind.”

“Is it because of Luca and me …”

“You and your brother have to stop thinking she’s there to be everything to you.”

We’re her children, I want to say. That’s what children do, isn’t it?

But I can’t imagine Sue’s children being like that. She taught them independence, and now they’re living in London and Toronto. Mia couldn’t even cope with me living in the next suburb with my grandmother.

The next day, when I get home from school, I tap on the door and let myself in. I bring in chamomile tea and toast, and for a moment or two I potter around her. One day I’d like to understand this thing, this ugly sickness that’s been sleeping inside of her like a cancer. I wonder if it’s sleeping inside of me. I wonder if it was in her when she was sixteen, or if it appeared much later. Looking at it from a distance makes me hate her for being weak. Up close, I’ve never loved her so much in my life.

I lie alongside her on the bed, where papers brought by Sue, the day before, are scattered all over the place.

“Have you done your homework?” she asks, because I think it’s the easiest question for her.

“Most of it. Have you done yours?”

She gives a little sound, like a laugh.

“I’ll do it for you,” I say. “You used to let me mark your multiple choice stuff.”

“That was when I taught Year Eight. It’s different.”

She hardly has the energy to speak, but I think she wants the company. The contact with the outside world, without having to involve herself in it.

We lie there for a moment in silence.

“Was Sebastian’s a mistake?” she asks me quietly.

I don’t know how to answer that. I thought I knew the answer, but now it’s not so easy to say. So I tell her about the Sebastian girls, and by the time I’ve spoken for an hour I realize that I can’t work them out. Why does Siobhan Sullivan hang out with us, when she’s accepted by so many other groups? Any day now she’s going to point out how uncool we are and move on. And Tara Finke? The guys in the social justice group hang around her like flies, and as gracious as she is with them, as passionate as they allow her to be without laughing at her like we do sometimes, she’s always back with us, arguing, bitching, yelling. It’s weird, but I think we’re kind of a legitimate group.

I know that Mia thinks that as well, because she nods. In the past, I’d lie on her bed and her voice would soothe me. Now it seems like the other way around.

And then I tell her about Will Trombal and about dancing in drama and Shaheen from biology and Eva from economics and Ryan from English and Will Trombal. I tell her about the pathetic Brolin and the lovely Brother Louis and the harassed but kind Ms. Qui

And when I finish speaking, I kiss her cheek and I take away the tray.

And it’s empty.

That’s how we begin.

chapter 17

ON THE WAY to the bus stop from school, we walk past this young homeless guy sitting outside a major department store with a cardboard sign saying, I’m Hungry. Please Feed Me. Brian Turner from legal studies yells out, “Get a job,” and Siobhan laughs and Tara goes on about it all the way to the bus stop.

By the time we sit in the back row of the bus, she and Siobhan have had an argument about it, and the four of us sit in silence. Thomas Mackee is with us as well, because there’s nowhere else for him to sit.

The girl in front of us, who hasn’t shut up the whole time, stands up and waves to her friends as she gets off the bus.

“I love youse.”

We exchange glances.

“What a loser,” Siobhan snickers.

“Why is it that someone like Turner who calls out to a beggar on a street isn’t a loser, but someone who says ‘youse’ is?” Tara Finke asks, starting up again.

“Because I think that people should learn how to speak the English language.”

“But it’s okay for them to be immoral,” I say.

“Who’s immoral?” Siobhan argues.

“Brian Turner,” Tara Finke interrupts. “But it’s okay to laugh at his feeble attention seeking, but not to be touched by some nice person who says youse.”

“How do we know she’s nice? Because she expressed her love to her friends?”

“You’re judging her by her literacy,” Tara says. “You’re a literacist.”

“You’ve made that up.”

Thomas Mackee packs up his stuff and stands up. “You chicks give me the shits,” he says.

“You, on the other hand, brighten up our day,” I tell him. “We all regard you as a god.”

“You know what we call you? Bitch Spice, Butch Spice, Slut Spice, and Stupid Spice.”

He walks away, and we go back to saying nothing for a moment until Justine Kalinsky looks at me and holds out her arms. “My brother reckons that my arms are like Polish salami,” she tells me. “Do you think I’m Butch Spice?”

I look at her arms and shake my head.

“Well, I’m a size eight, so I can’t possibly be,” Siobhan tells us.

“And you’re a slut,” Tara Finke says matter-of-factly, “so it’s quite clear which one you are.”

We can’t let it go. We get off at Justine Kalinsky’s stop just to debate it all the way home.

“I think I could be Butch Spice,” Tara tells us. “I’ve got short hair and that’s how those morons think.”

“But I’ve got the stocky build,” Justine says. “It’s an Eastern European peasant thing.”

“No, it’s Tara,” Siobhan says. “I’m sure of it.”

“So between you and me,” I tell Justine on the phone that night, “we’re either bitchy or stupid.”

“Oh God,” she moans. “Everyone thinks I’m an idiot.”

“Thanks!”

“There is some possible overlap here,” Tara explains the next day as we sit in homeroom. “I think Francesca could be Bitch Spice, but some people do think she’s stupid as well.”

“I kissed two guys one night in Year Nine, so I could be Slut Spice too,” I tell them.

“No. Not possible. Because what would that make me? I’m not stupid, nor am I bitchy,” Siobhan says.

“Siobhan, you’re the whole spice rack as far as some people are concerned,” Tara informs her.

“Would you consider me bitchy, stupid, slutty, or butch?” I ask Shaheen in biology.

“The obvious one,” he says, knowing exactly what I’m talking about, which worries me. “By the way, is it true that you and Trombal pashed?”

“He was drunk.”

“You should go out with wogs.”

“He is a wog.”

“But not like us.”

“Are you asking me out, Shaheen?”

“Are you sick? As if you’re my type. You didn’t even know who Tupac was.”

I try not to look offended. “You could have let me down a lot more gently.”

He laughs. “You’re cool. Even though you’re not a Leb.”

“It’s obvious which one you are,” Jimmy Hailler tells me as we walk through Hyde Park.

“If it’s so obvious, why can’t I see it?”

“Because you live in your own world and can’t see anything.”

“Then which one am I?”

“You’re all four. You’re constantly bitching about things under your breath; you come across bloody stupid because you don’t speak; on a particular angle in that uniform on an overcast day with your hair up, you’ve got that stocky butch thing happening; plus you’re pashing other girls’ boyfriends, which makes you a slut.”