Page 2 of Catch and Cradle
“NOOO! My basil!”
She tries to pull away to grieve over what must be a freshly dead herb, but we’re all so tangled up that Jane and I get tugged along with her. I stumble off the edge of the stoop, fighting to keep my balance. Jane thuds into my back, which sends me careening forward like a domino to thump against Paulina. She sprawls forward and catches herself against the edge of the house before dropping to her knees to grab one of the plant pots and hoist it in the air.
“WHY CRUEL WORLD?” she shouts loud enough for her voice to echo in the street.
I turn to Jane after we’ve both righted ourselves from nearly falling on our faces. We have an entire silent conversation as we both bite our lips to keep from laughing at Paulina. We’re all close in the Babe Cave, but Jane and I have had our own secret best friend language since pretty much the moment we met.
After making the wordless decision to leave Paulina to her mourning—since she’s probably going to be out here for at least half an hour poking around at her plants—I pat her on the shoulder and announce that I’m going to put my stuff in my room.
“You all right?” Jane asks as we kick off our shoes in the narrow entranceway. Everything about the house is narrow. “You must be right tired.”
Her words are tinged with a slight Nova Scotian accent that makes her sound like an old fisherman’s wife trapped in the body of a twenty year-old university student. Paulina, Iz, and I are all from Ontario, and we call Jane our ‘local flavour.’ Her accent comes out even stronger when she’s angry, and she has a way of putting her hands on her hips and tapping her foot like anyone who pisses her off is a misbehaving husband coming home late from the pub.
At the moment, it’s just a subtle lilt. She insists on taking the tote bag I have perched on top of my suitcase so I can start hauling my stuff up the creaky stairs. I can smell something sugary drifting up from the ground floor even when I reach the top of the staircase.
“What’s the candle flavor of the day?” I ask Jane as she trudges up behind me.
Her obsession with scented candles is legendary. She uses the converted office downstairs as a bedroom, and she’s always got some weird smell filling up the house. I actually like the one she’s using today.
“Caramel apple. Isn’t it heavenly?” She takes a deep breath and raises her eyes to the ceiling as her mouth goes slack with bliss.
“Okay, okay. Don’t have a candlegasm.”
I roll my suitcase down the creaky floorboards of the hall. There isn’t much in this house that doesn’t creak. The door to my room is open, and so are my curtains. Dusk has almost turned to night now, but the annoying streetlight that filters through the leaves of a tree in our backyard casts everything in a greenish-yellow glow.
My bed is stripped, and the top of my desk is clearer than it’s ever been during a semester, but other than that, the room looks like I could have woken up here instead of halfway across the country. Lacrosse gear is tucked on shelves and hooks as functional decor. A big UNS flag covers one of my closet doors, and there’s a Pride flag tacked to the other. A framed photo of my first lacrosse team back in my hometown hangs over my desk, and the wall behind my headboard is covered by a huge art print of chickadees sitting on a branch. The drawing matches the sleeve tattoo on my left upper arm. There’s a stained glass chickadee hanging in the window too, lit up from behind by the streetlamp.
I click the overhead light on and wheel my suitcase inside. I set it down under the display of Polaroid photos I made by clipping them to strings with mini clothespins. Jane comes in behind me, and we stare at the photos together.
“Look at what little babies we were!” I point at a shot of her with her arms around my neck in the campus sports bar, the two of us wearing jerseys and clearly wasted. It was taken after lacrosse season ended in our freshman year.
“Oh my god, my cheeks are right chubby in that. Freshman fifteen much?”
“Jane!” I punch her in the arm. “You are a sexy motherfucker, and you know it.”
Jane is one of the most down to earth, breezily confident people I know, but I also know being a curvy athlete has been hard for her.
She stares at the photo for another second and then nods. “Yes. Yes I am. Especially in this one! Oooh, and look at you! This was just after you got your hair dyed.”
She points at another photo, this one taken at the start of the summer just after I’d gotten back from a trip to Montreal. I finished exams earlier than most people, so I went to visit my brother and ended up getting the teal ombre of my dreams from his hairstylist girlfriend. In the picture, Jane and I are both wearing smokey eye makeup we tried and failed to copy from a YouTube tutorial. We’re not really a makeup household, but we wanted to get all sexy to celebrate the end of term.
Jane steps closer to squint at another photo. “And aww look! It’s all of us and—oh.”
I can’t stop myself from flinching when I spot the reason for the oh.
I thought I got rid of all my photos of him. I want to grab the Polaroid and possibly rip it into a million tiny pieces, but my whole body has gone rigid. I can’t even turn around to hide the stupid stinging in my eyes from Jane.
“Oh, Hope!” Her face creases when she looks at me. “Come here. Let me give you a Jane hug.”
She throws her arms around me and squeezes hard enough to push the air out of my lungs. I flap my hands against her sides since she isn’t letting me move enough to pat her on the back.
“Thanks, Jane.” I’m grateful my voice isn’t shaking. “I’m fine. He’s just a fucking asshole.”
She pulls back to hold me at arm’s length and nods with a fierce gleam in her eyes. “Yeah, that’s right. That fucking turd.”
I burst out laughing. “Turd is most certainly the word.”
She drops my arms, and I unclip the photo before making a dramatic show of ripping it up while she cheers me on. I drop the pieces in the empty trash can by my desk.