Your Constant Star Read online

  YOUR

  CONSTANT

  STAR

  BRENDA HASIUK

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  Text copyright © 2014 Brenda Hasiuk

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Hasiuk, Brenda, 1968-, author

  Your constant star / Brenda Hasiuk.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4598-0368-8 (pbk.).--

  ISBN 978-1-4598-0369-5 (pdf).--ISBN 978-1-4598-0370-1 (epub)

  I. Title.

  PS8615.A776Y69 2014 jC813’.6 C2013-906653-5

  C2013-906654-3

  First published in the United States, 2014

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013954147

  Summary: Three Winnipeg teens deal with pregnancy, cultural differences and the fallout of bad decisions.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  With the generous support of the Manitoba Arts Council

  Cover design by Chantal Gabriell

  Cover images by Getty Images, Dreamstime and iStockphoto.com

  Author photo by Ian McCausland

  In Canada:

  Orca Book Publishers

  PO Box 5626, Station B

  Victoria, BC Canada

  V8R 6S4

  In the United States:

  Orca Book Publishers

  PO Box 468

  Custer, WA USA

  98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  17 16 15 14 • 4 3 2 1

  To Duncan, my North Star,

  and to Sebastian and Katya, our Big and Little Dippers

  Contents

  PART ONE: Faye

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  PART TWO: Bev

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  PART THREE: Mannie

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  EPILOGUE: Faye

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PART ONE

  Faye

  ONE

  Up until now, I’ve been pretty much happy ho-hum—and I’m good with that. The only thing remotely interesting about me is that my parents are white and I’m Chinese.

  I never thought I’d become obsessed with a Belarusian with bad teeth who called me “little bird.” In hindsight, it seems such a strange and condescending thing to call someone whose pants you’re trying to get into. But at the time, it turned me weak as a newborn chick. I’ve spent the last few months hoping some guy who lives almost halfway around the world will get in touch, send me a line like hey, how you doing, or I think about you, little bird, each hour of the day and each of the night. And I definitely never thought I’d hear from Bev Novak again.

  But here I am, on my way to meet a girl I haven’t seen since I was eight, almost a decade ago. She moved away, but it probably took her about a minute to track me down. I still live in the same house, on the same street. Happy ho-hum.

  It’s March in Winnipeg, which means it’s snowing—not floating, intricate, wondrous flakes, but pellets that bounce off your face like Ping-Pong balls. Everything is monochromatic—white sky, white ground, white stucco strip mall. My father likes to point out that we live in the coldest major city in the world, as if that’s some kind of tourist draw. I told him that calling this week off from school “spring break” is like calling a dentist chair a poolside lounger, and he told me, seriously, that I might have a future in comedy writing.

  I don’t even know why I agreed to meet up with Bev, because when I think of her, there are no warm and fuzzy childhood vibes. She only lived across the street for three years, and for one of those years, I barely saw her, thanks to what my mother calls “the scissors incident.”

  I didn’t bother mentioning to my parents that I was going to see her again. I knew it’d end up being more trouble than it was worth. Bev and I were both five when we met, and even then, I knew there was nothing ho-hum about Bev.

  I’d suggested we meet at the big coffee chain on the corner, the one my father shuns for its “overpriced mediocrity.” She’s already standing in the doorway, unmistakable, and any thoughts I had of bolting shrivel up. She’s talking on her cell and holds up a finger to me.

  I can’t tell if I’m supposed to wait for her or go in and order. My father likes to joke that the Chinese obsession with duty and etiquette must be genetic, because I get hung up on these things, as if there has to be a right answer for everything. It wasn’t quite so funny when I was diagnosed as “borderline OCD,” but he’s right. They’ve managed to raise the girl everyone thinks of when they think of Asian girls—I play the cello (or at least I used to), I’m near the top of the class, I sweat the small stuff, I am small-boned and flat-chested.

  Bev keeps talking, and it looks like things are getting a little heated, so I go inside. There’s no one in the place except a serious-looking guy on a laptop and two older women poring over a photo album. The two girls behind the counter have matching dyed black hair and black T-shirts. One is busy arranging cookies on a tray while the other sits on a stool, watching her.

  I stare up at the menu as if I’ve never seen it before.

  “Forget it, just forget it—I’m not your little puppy.”

  It’s Bev. Right behind me. Shouting.

  The guy on the laptop looks up, annoyed by the interruption but unable to help himself, like someone just switched his channel from the weather report to reality TV.

  “I don’t have to listen to this,” Bev says and hangs up.

  The busy girl waves her hand in front of my face. “Can I get you something?”

  Bev spins me around by the shoulders and looks me up and down with a giant smile. Back when I knew her, her two front teeth were crooked, but now they’re perfect. “You look the same, Faye,” she says. “The very same.”

  When we were kids, I remember, even when something was a matter of opinion, her enthusiasm always made it sound true.

  “That’s me,” I say, trying to ignore Mr. Laptop’s gaze, pretending I don’t care that the girls behind the counter will bitch about us later. “The very same.”

  Bev shoves the cell in her purse, which is either very expensive or a great knockoff. She unzips her parka and rests her hands on her bulging stomach. There’s maybe a two-inch gap of unbelievably tight pink skin between the waist of her yoga pants and the hem of her T-shirt. “I guess you can’t say the same thing about me.”

  Some things are still the same, I want to say. When we were kids, Jill, Bev’s half-sister in Toronto, was forever sending her high-priced designer hand-me-downs that didn’t suit Bev’s baby fat.

  It’s amazing how much she looks like her mother, Lara, now—nothing but gorgeous, soft curves from head to toe, light eyes darkened by flaky mascara and something else much less obvious. Like a peach that’s gotten too ripe.

  “You look like your mom,” I say.

  Bev stares up at the menu as if bored by the very mention of her mother. “Yeah, you should see her now. She put on, like, a gazillion pounds, then she lost it, and now she’s back up to a size eighteen.”

  The busy girl gives up on us and start
s refilling a stack of cup lids. The other one still does nothing except raise her eyebrows at me. One of them is pierced and looks slightly infected.

  “She’s teaching classes on emotional eating,” Bev says. “Which is too funny for words.”

  I fish out the gift card my old cello teacher gave me for Chinese New Year and tell Bev I’m buying—whatever she wants. When our drinks are ready, I manage to get her to take a seat by the faux fireplace. She sinks down onto a purple faux-suede armchair and flashes her now-perfect teeth. She doesn’t say a word, just smiles with one pink hand resting peacefully on her pink bump.

  “So,” I say. “Wow.” Then what? What does one say in these circumstances? So, you decided not to abort?

  She blows on her super-grande mocha, then takes a long, beer-like chug. Foam lingers on her upper lip, and she wipes it off with the back of her hand. For the first time, she seems to notice Mr. Laptop’s gaze, and she glares at him until he goes back to staring at his screen.

  “Obviously, this was not planned,” she says.

  I nod, thankful I have a tea bag to play with.

  She plants her coffee on the wobbly table and pushes it away like it suddenly smells bad. “My dad is royally pissed, but that’s nothing new.” She pats her stomach. “The baby daddy, Mannie, isn’t very bright and is very into the whole thing.”

  I nod some more, like I have a clue. I can barely remember what Bev’s father looked like, maybe because he was almost never there. You just always felt his presence, after the fact. Bev would say, “He filled in the pool because Mom is too lazy to do a damn thing around here,” or “He went to New Orleans and didn’t take us, so she’s ripping out the carpet and putting in hardwood.”

  “What about your mom?” I ask.

  Bev laughs with the raspiness of a smoker. I remember their sunroom always smelled of her father’s late-night cigarettes. “She’s in Vancouver,” she says.

  I wait for more, but she just clasps her hands over her stomach like a schoolteacher at a desk.

  Mr. Laptop gets up and grabs the key to the washroom off a hook.

  “What about your parents?” she asks. “Do they still let you have fast food on Meeting Day?”

  Just as I’m starting to wonder what I’m doing here, chitchatting about baby daddies with some long-lost neighbor, she comes up with that. How many other people in this world know about fast food on Meeting Day?

  On May 12, the date my parents first took me in their arms and I became theirs, we always go out for a special Chinese meal. The only exception was when I was seven and decided that a cheeseburger and onion rings were much more celebratory. My parents had been very down on the idea, but I’d gotten quite stuck on it. I’d insisted that my feelings should count just as much as theirs, especially since it was my day. Then, at the last minute, I’d invited Bev along, despite knowing full well the occasion was really meant for the three of us and the three of us alone.

  Bev’s smile widens, like she knows she’s got me. Though her teeth are straight now, I notice her grin is still a little crooked.

  “Just that one time,” I say. “My dad had a bypass two years ago and now my mom won’t let him eat anything but sprouts.”

  Bev looks a little disappointed. “Is he good now?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “He’s fitter than ever.”

  The purse at Bev’s feet begins to ring. She reaches down with a grunt and starts piling things on the wobbly table—a keychain in the shape of lips, a lighter covered in yellow happy faces, a brush full of her blond hair, a hoop earring, an ultrasound image. She finds her phone just in time for Mr. Laptop to reappear, rubbing his wet hands on his pants.

  “Bev here,” she says. Then, “Okay already.” Then, louder, “Okay.”

  The place has gotten more crowded, and the espresso machine is running like a dojo full of karate students doing the dragon breath. Mr. Laptop will have to struggle to eavesdrop.

  “I have to go,” she says.

  It takes me a moment to process that she’s hung up and is talking to me. She’s already putting stuff back in her purse. “Weird, eh?”

  I’m still confused. She shoves the ultrasound image across the table to me. “It looks like a little alien, don’t you think?”

  She reaches for her abandoned coffee and chugs it like a thirsty marathoner, then plunks the cup down in front of me. “That’s what I call it. The Little Alien.”

  Her purse is already slung over her shoulder. “I’m really sorry. I’ll be in touch.”

  She’s already walking away when I notice the image, The Little Alien, still on the table. I stand up and wave it over my head like a surrender flag. “Hey!”

  She’s already out the door. “It’s okay. I’ve got another one,” she calls back to me.

  The busy girl places an apple fritter in front of Mr. Laptop, and we all watch Bev’s soft, round backside disappear into the pelting snow. I look down at the near-empty cup and wonder how much caffeine she and her baby just drank.

  By the time I get home, my father is back from the university and busy grading first-year papers, a defeated scowl on his face.

  “I hate my life,” he says. “How are you?” Then he dives right back in, as if torturing himself is far more important than actually waiting for a reply from his daughter. I gladly leave him to it so I can go up to my room and commune with my laptop in peace.

  My father will not let me get a smart phone—he says as soon as I turn eighteen, I’m perfectly welcome to buy my own way into the “distracted generation.” Still, I’ve checked for a message from Sasha exactly eight times per day since he went back to Belarus five months ago, which I know is totally OCD. At least it doesn’t have to be at the same time every day, which would really interfere with my life and become “an issue.” As always, there is no message. Zilch, nada, bupkis.

  I look around for the wooden step stool I’ve had since forever. My mother hand-painted my name on it in Chinese characters that look like crushed spiders. It’s gone, which means my father probably stole it to change a lightbulb, and I have no choice but to open the bottom drawer of my dresser and use it as a step.

  On the top shelf of my closet are two boxes stacked one on top of the other. They are exactly the same, except the top one is kind of tattered and the bottom one is pristine. They’re made of creamy cardboard covered in red poppies with swirling stems so thin you can hardly see them. At one time, these boxes held silk robes that now hang in our house, spread-eagled on curtain rods. The black robe is in my parents’ bedroom and the turquoise one is in mine. Both robes are embroidered all over with gold lotus flowers. Smiling silver dragons wind their way up toward the collar, as if their silky pink tongues want to whisper a secret in your ear.

  I reach up and across the closet, clutching an empty hanger for balance. The bottom box is jutting out a tiny bit, and I’ve just managed to grab it when the drawer slides and I go down.

  A mound of discarded clothes breaks my fall, but my right elbow slams into an open spot of hardwood. It hurts enough to make me cry, but I don’t. There’s a familiar creak at the bottom of the stairs and I know my mother is home. When my father is concentrating, he wouldn’t notice if a submarine crashed into the den. There’s another creak, and another, then nothing.

  Our house is a hundred years old, with cracks in every corner like crow’s feet. It’s as if it’s seen too much to let anyone get away with anything. So I know my mother is trying to stand gingerly on the third step, all five feet ten inches of her, tall for a Polish woman, not wanting to interfere because my door is closed but wondering if I’ve broken my neck.

  “You okay up there?”

  My mother could reach those boxes in my closet without a step stool but wouldn’t dream of it because she believes everyone has a right to her own private space.

  “All good,” I shout.

  But maybe I’m a little too quick to respond or maybe she can actually hear, from midway up the stairs, blood racing to my throbbing elb
ow. Either way, she’s at my door with amazing speed for a middle-aged journalist who smoked a pack a day in her twenties and could stand to lose forty pounds. She’s waded through the clutter on the floor and is hunkered down beside me before I can think of an explanation.

  She touches the pristine box at my feet, then strokes my cheek with her generous sausage-like fingers. “Haven’t had that down for a while, eh?”

  I nod, afraid that if I speak I’ll start bawling and never stop. I’ve been told that even as a toddler, the only time I cried was when I’d hurt myself. I’ve wondered sometimes if my mother is the same about sentiment. A hard-nosed realist in all other aspects of her life, she becomes a blubbering softie with me. When she talks about becoming a mother at forty-two, she cries. When she talks about how brave my birth mother was, how she risked severe punishment by leaving me in a busy market so I would be discovered quickly, she cries. When we get together with other families like ours, a bunch of spoiled Chinese girls and their doting, bleary-eyed Caucasian parents, she cries. Faster than most kids, I learned that weeping could mean happiness. I trusted everything she said about the adoption, everything she felt, because my mother couldn’t fake that kind of thing if she tried.

  She’s mistaken about the box though. It’s not the one she thinks it is. The worn one we must’ve opened up and gone through a hundred times when I was a kid is still in the closet.

  “You want to talk?” she asks. “I can’t believe it’s been so long.”

  With her settled there on her haunches in khakis and a baggy white blouse, I get a glimpse of her peasant ancestors—she could be crouching in a wheatfield, ready to lunch on a hunk of cheese and a sauerkraut bun.

  I just want her to leave so I can get some ice for my elbow.

  “I’m good,” I say. “I just got the urge, for some reason.”

  This seems to satisfy her. She pats my knee, struggles to her feet with all the grace of a big-boned, out-of-shape reporter and stares dreamily into the middle distance. “I swear you used to sleep with that thing.” Then she heads off to try and reach some city councilor for a comment on something.