Neighbourhood Watch by Rhonda Mullins (best feel good books txt) 📗

Has to leave.

Comes out of her room.

The TV is off. She doesn’t remember the last time that happened.

The TV is off, and the shower is running. Almost like a normal household.

Her concert is tonight. Her concert.

The TV is off, and the shower is running because her mother is going to come and is getting ready.

Roxane places the picture of Anastasia at the bottom of her violin case.

Ready to go.

The shower is still running.

Opens the door a crack, cloud of warmth: ‘Mom, I’m going. I’ll save you a seat.’

A meek yes from under the water, see you there.

Closes the door, goes outside. The wind is whipping up the snow and deposits a white veil on the street. Roxane walks through it. There’s no yellow school bus today. She is going to walk to school today. She is playing a concert today.

She knows exactly where she is going today.

* * *

It’s dark. The air lashes and cars are beeping. It smells like sex and beer.

People are making out and swatting at each other on the brightly lit Main.

It’s Friday.

You wonder where they got the number from. Fifty. Can’t come within fifty metres of your mother. When you get to forty-nine, does it start to burn? Does she go up in flames? Spontaneously combust?

Fifty. Mélissa has done the calculation.

If she were to lie down on the ground, it would be around thirty times her. And with the heels, it would be a bit less.

The letter crack is empty. Her white papers have flown off into the void of the neighbourhood. Mélissa wonders who will read them.

She’s there, on the other side. A car stops in front of the group.

No … don’t get in. Wait for me.

Another girl is leaving. Oof.

Okay. I have to walk properly.

Mélissa takes a deep breath.

* * *

The chairs are all lined up in the auditorium. It looks nice. It’s organized. A few people are already there. Roxane gets up onstage and walks between the music stands. Turns back toward the room; the light hits her as if it recognizes her. In an hour, she is going to play for an audience, for her father, for her mother.

She looks at the room and chooses two seats, the best ones.

She steps down. Writes, concentrating, two ‘reserved’ signs, which she places on the two best seats in the house. For her parents.

* * *

Her heel squeezed in the vise of the shoe, clacking on the sidewalk, the child’s foot teeters but stays upright. Clack, another step, she advances, delicately, head held high and brow furrowed. Fifty metres from the other side of the street, she turns slowly toward the group of matchstick women. She is trembling but she is standing tall. Her thighs are shaking, her ankles are tensed, her lips are taut, but her head is high. She looks at her mother.

‘Hey, what the fuck, who’s she?’

There’s raspy squawking from the group: there’s competition on the other side of the street.

‘Meg, isn’t that your girl?’

Meg turns around. Silence.

Her big blue eyes cross the fifty metres. To meet the eyes of the prostitute across the street.

For a moment, Hochelaga is still. There’s no more shouting, it doesn’t smell, it stops shining everywhere. It’s just a dark, biting night where nothing else exists but two sets of eyes meeting.

* * *

Jesus … like wind between her dry lips.

Louise, standing in front of the mirror. Not moving. Like a ghost.

Pale. Hollows of sadness under her eyes.

She looks at herself, and Jesus, is she ever ugly.

She has nothing to hide her face. She stopped using makeup a long time ago. It’s been a long time.

She would cry, but there’s nothing left.

She would have a drink, but she’s decided she should hold off tonight.

She wets her hair. A bit, just with her fingers. Then her whole head under the tap.

She looks at herself. Smiles a fake smile. Starts to laugh. Slams the door.

‘Okay, what should I wear?’ Nothing fits her anymore. She’s gotten fat. A fat ass.

She takes out a skirt. It looks cold outside. Cold wind on her cheeks – it will probably remind her she’s alive. She would walk out with her skirt and a nice coat – would say hello, Mr. Gingras to the neighbour clearing the snow from his car, hello, Ms. Vigneault to her neighbour picking up her mail – then she wouldn’t say anything to the prostitutes but she would look at them because it’s fucking cold and women have each other’s backs.

She would walk like that, at a good clip, to the school. When she gets there, she would smile at people, not even forced. She would say, ‘Jesus, it’s cold,’ the way people do, and the people at the school would say to each other, ‘So that’s Roxane’s mother,’ and they would be surprised because she looks like she’s got it together, Roxane’s mother.

And then she would sit down with the other mothers, the concert would start, and Roxane would be really good, and everyone would say, ‘She’s good, your daughter is good, madame, she’s good!’

And she would say, ‘I know.’

* * *

Mélissa is motionless in front of her mother, each on their side of the street. Smells her scent. Something animal is guiding her steps.

Clack clack on her piece of the sidewalk, Meg heads toward the street.

Hey, don’t fuck around, you’re going to get arrested if you cross the street.

On the other side, Mélissa in her shoes doesn’t fall.

Come over here Mom come over here Mom come over here Mom like a song in her head.

Like a wounded animal, Meg crosses the street without falling either.

Forty-thirty-twenty-ten metres.

In front of her daughter. Looking her in the eye.

A long moment, in silence.

Then words, like a twisted torrent, words of love and hate.

Get out of here for chrissake I love you I’ve got nothing I’m ugly you’re beautiful get the fuck outta here now please move it run – a slap to the face, tears on their cheeks, a hand that hangs on, nails