Heartache and Other Natural Shocks Read online

  Copyright © 2015 by Glenda Leznoff

  Published in Canada and the United States of America by Tundra Books, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, a Penguin Random House Company

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014951823

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher—or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Leznoff, Glenda Barbara, 1956-, author

  Heartache and other natural shocks / written by Glenda Leznoff.

  ISBN 978-1-77049-836-5 (bound).—ISBN 978-1-77049-837-2 (epub)

  I. Title.

  PS8573.E995H42 2015 jC813’.54 C2014-905503-X

  C2014-905504-8

  Edited by Sue Tate

  Designed by Five Seventeen.

  www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

  v3.1

  For my parents, Ruth and Arthur Leznoff

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Jules: “Subterranean Homesick Blues”

  Carla: “No Time”

  Jules: “It Don’t Come Easy”

  Carla: “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”

  Jules: “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ”

  Carla: “Watcha See Is Watcha Get”

  Jules: “Smiling Faces Sometimes”

  Carla: “Chick-A-Boom”

  Jules: “Desolation Row”

  Carla: “Baby I’m-A Want You”

  Jules: “You’ve Got a Friend”

  Carla: “Motorcycle Mama”

  Jules: “With a Little Help from My Friends”

  Carla: “Rainy Days and Mondays”

  Jules: “A Case of You”

  Carla: “I’ll Take You There”

  Jules: “What’s Going On”

  Carla: “Wild World”

  Jules: “Anticipation”

  Carla: “Where Did the Love Go”

  Jules: “Helplessly Hoping”

  Carla: “You’ve Got It Bad Girl”

  Jules: “It Ain’t Me Babe”

  Carla: “If You Really Love Me”

  Jules: “Went to See the Gypsy”

  Carla: “I’m Losing You”

  Jules: “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”

  Carla: “Let It Bleed”

  Jules: “See Me, Feel Me”

  Carla: “Ain’t No Sunshine”

  Jules: “Winterlude”

  Carla: “Hot Love”

  Jules: “The Long and Winding Road”

  Carla: “No Sugar Tonight”

  Jules: “One Toke over the Line”

  Carla: “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight”

  Jules: “The Thrill Is Gone”

  Carla: “War”

  Jules: “Tell Me Why”

  Carla: “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”

  Jules: “Our House”

  Carla: “Eve of Destruction”

  Jules: “Way Back Home”

  Carla: “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”

  Jules: “Walk on the Wild Side”

  Carla: “Riders on the Storm”

  Jules: “Slippin’ into Darkness”

  Carla: “Everybody Plays the Fool”

  Jules: “Let It Be”

  Carla: “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”

  Jules: “I Shall Be Released”

  Carla: “New Morning”

  Jules: “If Dogs Run Free”

  Acknowledgments

  “Subterranean Homesick Blues”

  I’m halfway between Montreal and Toronto in one of those awful gas/food stations off the 401. If purgatory were a real place, it would look like this: lots of people, lots of plastic, bad food and toilet lineups. Right now, I’m sitting in an orange plastic chair, attached to a brown plastic table, bolted to the floor—so no one will steal it? Who designs these places? Ugly Inc.?

  Bobby is picking at his french fries, Mom is sipping coffee and I’m pretending to read so I won’t have to talk to them, but I can feel Mom’s blue hawk eyes zooming in on me. She says, “Julia, you should eat something.”

  Is she kidding? I’m so nervous I could throw up. Besides, if eating would make her happy, I’d go on a hunger strike.

  If I went on a hunger strike, would she let me go home? What would happen if, instead of going to the bathroom, I snuck out the exit, ran across the highway and stuck out my thumb? Would anyone pick up a desperate-looking teenager? Anyone other than a pervert, I mean. And where would I go if I had the guts to make a run for it?

  I think about my escape options:

  1. I could fly to Paris, get a job waitressing in the Latin Quarter and become an artist. But unlike Vincent van Gogh, who sold only one painting in his entire life and died penniless, I’d get discovered and become rich and famous, at which point I may or may not forgive my parents for ruining my life.

  2. I could take a vow of silence and join a Benedictine monastery. Except I don’t believe in God, and they probably don’t accept fifteen-year-old Jewish girls. Scratch that.

  3. I could go to Tibet and visit those temples with the bronze bells and golden Buddhas. I’d spin prayer wheels—the ones that look like Purim gregors—and my prayers would be carried off into the wind. Or maybe I’d spend weeks making an intricate mandala from brightly colored grains of sand, and in the end, I’d sweep it all away into a pile of thin gray dust, a symbol of the impermanence of life.

  Because everything is impermanent. I know that now. I didn’t know it a year ago. A year ago, I was just a normal teenager living in a three-bedroom, semidetached house in the Town of Mount Royal, thinking my life was a straight road. I walked to T.M.R. High every day with my best friend, Mollie Fineberg, and twice a week I took jazz dancing classes with Eva von Gencsy from Les Ballets Jazz at the Saidye Bronfman Centre. I was happy and I didn’t even know it. And why didn’t I know it? Because I didn’t understand that things change. Someone should warn you about that when you’re growing up. Someone should inform you that living in a nice house, in a beautiful city like Montreal, doesn’t mean that your life is going to be that way forever.

  Bobby shoves his french fries in my face. They’re drenched in ketchup. He says, “Jules, you can have one if you want.” He squints at me. He has big brown eyes and thick lashes, just like Dad. Why do boys always get the great lashes? He’s being unusually considerate for a nine-year-old brat, but I shake my head. My stomach is bubbling like a witch’s cauldron.

  Mom drains her coffee, and we head back to the station wagon. In three hours we’ll be in a rented house in Willowdale, Toronto. I’ve never been to Toronto. If I had to make a list of all the places I’d like to visit in my lifetime, Toronto wouldn’t even be on it. I try to imagine what my life will be like there, but I can’t. All I can think about is everything I’ve left behind.

  Last night I slept at Mollie’s, and we stayed up till four in the morning talking and listening to music. All the songs seemed to be about us: “You’ve Got a Friend,” “Fire and Rain,” “Bridge over Troubled Water.” Every time a song started up, we’d look at each other and burst into tears. Our eyes got so red and puffy, we had to put slices of cucumber on them, like they tell you to do in Vogue’s beauty tips. The cucumber was cold and a bit sticky. We lay on our backs on Mollie’s bed and listened to Simon & Garfunkel’s Bookends album all
the way to the end, where it’s just Paul Simon’s lone guitar and their two beautiful voices singing about “a time of innocence, a time of confidences.”

  When the song finished, neither of us spoke. I listened to the scratchy sound of the needle skimming across the record and the steady ticking of the grandfather clock at the end of the hall. I thought about all the nights I’ve slept at Mollie’s and how I’ve always loved the sound of that clock, but now it was just counting down the seconds till I had to leave town, like some evil death-clock in a Dalí painting or a Bergman film.

  We crawled under the covers, and I whispered, “Mollie, I can’t do this.”

  She said, “Jules, it will be really hard at the beginning, but then you’ll get used to it. People get used to anything. And after a while, new things will happen. Good things.”

  I wanted to ask her What good things could possibly happen to me in a strange high school, in a new city where I knew no one? But I couldn’t speak because it felt like there was a dry stone stuck at the bottom of my throat, and it’s still there.

  In the car, my mother listens to the CBC news: more about Nixon, the bombings in Cambodia, the floods in Bangladesh. Disaster everywhere. I tune out. I lean my head against the window and stare at the farms and fields, with their brittle stacks of hay and their endless rows of corn. Who lives here? I wonder. Who lives in these sad, crooked farmhouses in the middle of nowhere, with views of the highway and of cars speeding past carrying strangers to the big city, far, far away?

  “No Time”

  Debbie’s at the wheel of her mom’s Buick LeSabre, Marlene’s in the passenger seat and I’m in the back, peeking out the window. Steve lives in Forest Hill: quiet street, big house. The first time we drive past, no one’s around. I make Debbie circle the block. The second time we cruise by—oh my God—there he is, coming out of the house.

  “Shit!” I say, ducking down. Steve knows Marlene and me from Camp Minawaka, but he doesn’t know Deb.

  Marlene says, “Uh-oh, he sees me.”

  I can’t look, but I hear his voice. “Hey, Marlene?”

  Debbie stops the car.

  “Drive!” I whisper.

  Marlene puts on her fake-surprised voice and says, “Oh, hi, Steve, how’s it hangin’?”

  Steve’s voice gets closer. “Hey, Mar, what are you doing here?”

  “Drive! Drive!” I hiss, flattening myself to the floor.

  Marlene says, “Gotta go. See ya around, Steve.”

  Debbie guns it, and we leave Steve in the dust. As soon as we get around the corner, Debbie pulls over, and she and Marlene burst out laughing. I pop up and scream, “What the hell did you think you were doing back there? He almost saw me!” But Deb and Mar are practically peeing themselves laughing, and soon I’m laughing too.

  After that, we go to Sam the Record Man because Marlene wants to buy the Doors’ L.A. Woman album—which I already have. Then we go back to Marlene’s to listen to it and eat jujubes. Marlene read that jujubes have almost no calories, so we eat them all the time, but they sit in your stomach like rocks.

  The song “L.A. Woman” is seven minutes and forty-nine seconds long, with Jim Morrison singing “Mr. Mojo risin’ ” over and over, like he’s going to come right on the spot. Deb says that his “mojo” is his dick and it’s rising because he’s horny, but Steve told me that “Mr. Mojo risin’ ” is an anagram for Jim Morrison’s name—like when you mix up the letters into a different order—which is so cool! I love knowing things like that. Of course, I still can’t believe that Jim Morrison is dead. Marlene and I were at camp when it happened. July 3. When Mar heard that they found his body in a bathtub in Paris, she bawled her eyes out. He was only twenty-seven, the exact same age as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin when they overdosed last fall. Spooky, eh?

  Anyway, after we talk about Jim Morrison and his stupid heroin-addict girlfriend, Debbie grills me about Steve. She thinks he’s a real hunk and I should definitely give him a call, but I won’t. The thing is, he said he’d call me, and it’s been two days since camp ended.

  “Hey, Carla, I’ll call you as soon I get home,” he said on the bus.

  Yeah, right. I should’ve known better. Camp romances never last, because once the guy is back in the city, it’s O-V-E-R. It’s like camp never happened. It’s like suddenly he’s living on a different planet, in a different galaxy, and there’s no fucking way he can pick up the phone. Well, I couldn’t care less. It’s not like I’m in love with him or anything. But if we’re going to break up, I want to call the shots. It’s one of my rules: Dump him before he dumps you. I’m not a girl who gets dumped. It’s a good thing we didn’t fool around that much. Well, we necked and he felt me up, but that’s all. And he was sooo pushy. What a jerk.

  Marlene invites Debbie and me to sleep over, but Ma says no because I’ve been at camp all summer and she wants me home for dinner. Besides, the family from Montreal, the one renting the McDuff house next door, is supposed to show up today. Ma says they have two kids just like us, a boy and a girl. I wonder if they’re French. I wonder if the boy is my age—a cute boy with a sexy French accent. Now that would be something to look forward to.

  “It Don’t Come Easy”

  Telegram to self: Have arrived in hell. Worse than expected.

  When Mom pulls up to the McDuff house and says “We’re here,” my heart sinks. The house is a new fake Tudor, like all the other new fake Tudors on the block. There are no graceful, leafy maples on this street like there are at home, only spindly, pathetic tree-twigs sticking out of empty lawns like undernourished orphans. It makes you sad just looking at them. And that’s just the outside. Inside, everything is modern—in a bad way. The kitchen is so white, it hurts my eyes. The den is all glass and chrome. Bobby’s room is done in red, white and blue geometrics (yuck), and over the desk is a poster of Dave Keon. Not Henri Richard, not Jean Béliveau, but Dave Keon of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Bobby stares at it, stunned, like someone who’s been stabbed in the neck. We hate the Leafs! We’re Habs fans.

  But worst of all is my room. If you think hell is red, think again: it’s pink. Yes, everything in eight-year-old Karen McDuff’s bedroom is pink: the dresser, the curtains, the frilly bedspread, even the walls. They’re the color of bubblegum, of Barbie’s toy Corvette, of Pepto-Bismol. It’s a color that has a very short shelf life in a girl’s fairy tale world, and after that, it makes you want to puke.

  Mom yells for us to come help with the bags. We’re unloading the station wagon when a dark-haired woman bursts out of the house next door and rushes at us with a plate of muffins. She calls out, “Hello-ooo! You must be the new neighbors. I’m Gina Cabrielli, and this is Buzz.” A boy Bobby’s age races up behind her. Introductions are made. My mother gushes over the muffins.

  Buzz looks at Bobby and says, “I have a basketball hoop in my backyard.”

  Bobby says, “Cool.”

  Buzz says, “You wanna play?”

  Bobby says, “Sure.” And they’re off.

  The moms beam at each other. It’s like watching people pair up at a party. I grab my suitcase from the trunk and take it upstairs to the pink inferno. When I get back outside, a brown Buick is pulling into the Cabriellis’ driveway. The driver is a girl with whitish-blonde hair parted straight down the middle and mean snake eyes. The other girl, the one who steps out of the passenger seat, wears silver hoop earrings, a halter top and tight cutoff jeans. She has pouty lips, thick, glossy black hair like Mrs. Cabrielli’s and curves in all the right places.

  Mrs. Cabrielli says, “Carla! Come here and meet our new neighbors.”

  Snake Eyes backs the Buick out of the driveway. Carla trudges over, and I can feel her eyes scanning my body for features and flaws. She knows my vital statistics within seconds: too tall, too skinny, gangly legs, small breasts, long chestnut hair and brown eyes. My mother introduces me as Julia, which I hate.

  “Jules,” I say.

  “Julia will be going to Tom Thomson Secondary School
,” my mother says to Carla in that way mothers have when they’re trying to set you up.

  “Oh yeah,” Carla says, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

  “Carla can show you around,” Mrs. Cabrielli offers.

  “Sure,” Carla says, but she’s just being polite. I can tell. She doesn’t want to show me around any more than I want to hang out with her. You either like people right from the start, or you don’t. That’s what I think. Take me and Mollie, for example. We met on the first day of grade one. I was milling around the playground when the bell rang. The teacher told everyone to partner up. I looked around and saw a girl with frizzy hair, a round face and serious, dark eyes staring straight at me. She said, “Do you want to be my partner?” I said yes. It was friends at first sight.

  Meeting Carla is the opposite of that. After a few awkward moments, I say, “I better unpack. See ya.”

  Carla says yeah in a voice as flat and dry as cardboard.

  I carry my box of records to my room and shut the door. If I were in Montreal, Mollie and I would bike over to Kane’s Drugstore to buy orange Popsicles, or we’d hang out at the pool and see if Mike Cameron and his friends were showing off their dives on the high board. Mollie has a crush on Mike. Right now, Mollie’s probably practicing her cello. She practices three hours a day because she’s gifted. One day, she’s going to be a world-famous concert cellist, and she’s still going to be my best friend.

  Around six, Mom calls me for dinner. I tell her I’m not hungry, and for once she doesn’t bug me. Later, Dad calls from Montreal to see how we’re settling in. I pick up the phone in Mom’s bedroom. When I get on the line, Dad’s voice sounds far away, like he could be in Paris or Moscow. He says, “How’s my favorite girl?” It’s our little joke because, of course, I’m his only girl.

  I say, “I’m okay,” but my voice warbles.

  “Hey, kiddo, tough day?” he asks.

  I hear a click and Bobby’s voice comes on the phone from downstairs. “Dad, when you come, can you bring my hockey stick?”

  I put the phone in my lap and listen to their voices filter through the receiver like static. I feel like an astronaut drifting through space, tied to my spaceship by a long, thin telephone cord. I hear Dad’s voice saying, “Jules, poopsie? Are you there?”