“So, tell us about this assignment,” Mom said as she handed Jacob a plate of No Name brand cookies. Her voice was higher-pitched than usual. Overeager. It made me cringe. As did the fact that she was still in her pajama bottoms and WHAT WOULD ALICE MUNRO DO? T-shirt. Meaning, she hadn’t changed. Meaning, she still wasn’t wearing a bra.
Jacob wore another sweater; he had quite the collection. This one looked like a Cowichan design, in browns and off-whites, with two bears on the front. He grabbed two cookies with his good hand, just as Anne of Green Gables leapt onto his lap. “We have to adapt a scene from Wuthering Heights into another format,” he said. “Like a screenplay, or a song.” He started manipulating his bionic arm for the cat.
Mom glanced at his arm but said nothing. “Wuthering Heights is one of Petula’s favorites.” She looked at me, willing me to join the conversation.
But I couldn’t. I was seeing our apartment through Jacob’s eyes. Our furniture, a mishmash of antiques that had belonged to my mom’s grandparents, took up a lot of floor space. Most of it was worn and tattered, destroyed by years of kids and cat claws. The carpet was strewn with toy mice and tufts of fur, even though I’d vacuumed that morning. Two different cat gyms, plus Dad’s records, Mom’s books, family photos, and a bunch of my old crafts, meant there was little room left for humans. I stared at my feet. To add insult to injury, there was a hole in my left sock. Not only did my toenails need clipping, there was a hair growing out of the knuckle of my big toe.
Dad joined us from the kitchen, carrying a tray. He passed out tea in mismatched mugs. Of course Jacob had to get the one that read WORLD’S BEST FARTHER. “It’s so nice to meet one of Petula’s friends.”
“It really is,” said Mom. “She never brings friends home these days.”
Thank you, Mom! Thank you so much! Of course I didn’t bring home friends. I didn’t have any. And even if I did, I wouldn’t have brought them here. I knew how we looked to the outside world. The last “friend” to visit had been a girl in my grade named Brittany. Mr. Watley had asked her to bring me some schoolwork when I’d been home sick. Mom had been fostering a litter of kittens, so we’d had eight cats, an unusually high number. Brittany had told everyone at school that our apartment smelled bad and that we had enough cats to be on an episode of Animal Hoarders.
Bitch.
“I like your apartment, Mr. and Mrs. De Wilde,” Jacob said. “It’s very homey. Lived-in.” I was sure he meant it as an insult.
“Please, call us Virginia and Andreas,” said my dad.
“Who’s the record collector?”
“Me. It’s old stock. We used to own a secondhand book-and-record shop.”
“Wow. Cool.”
“It was cool,” Dad agreed, sipping his tea. “While it lasted.”
“Jacob, are you new at Princess Margaret?” asked Mom.
He nodded. “We moved here from Toronto last month. My parents got job transfers.” Alice and Stanley wandered in, followed by Ferdinand. Ferdinand leapt onto my mom’s lap. I could see Jacob doing a mental head count. “How many cats do you have?”
“Currently? Six,” Mom replied. Shoot me now. “I volunteer for the Vancouver Feline Rescue Association. So, four have pretty much become permanently ours, and the other two I’m fostering until we can find them forever homes.”
Dad smiled tightly. “She’s like Mia Farrow or Angelina Jolie, but with cats instead of kids.”
“I wish I could take one,” Jacob said. “But my mom’s allergic.”
“What’s your theory, Jacob?” Dad continued. “Just how many cats does one woman need before she becomes a certified crazy cat lady?”
Mom gave an equally tight smile. “I prefer to think of myself as a caring human being. Not a concept that’s readily understood by some.”
Jacob shifted uncomfortably in his seat and I died a small death. I could just imagine the stories he’d tell at school on Monday.
Dad looked at his watch. “Oops, got to go. Your mom and I have an appointment at two.” Thank God he didn’t mention it was with their marriage counselor.
They stood up. I turned to Jacob. “Let’s get this over with.” The sooner we got to it, the sooner he would leave.
“You couldn’t have called first?” I asked as we entered my room.
“How? You wouldn’t give me your number. I had no choice but to come over. Your last name’s listed in the building directory.”
I moved to close my door, but he stopped me. “Leave it open. Please.” I gave him a puzzled look. “I don’t like feeling closed in.”
“You’re claustrophobic?”
“Sort of.” He perched on my bed and glanced around my room. “Wow. You’re kind of a pig.”
My face burned. My room is the one place where I feel I can totally let down my guard. I think of it less as messy and more as controlled chaos. But as I glanced around, I could see Jacob had a point. Dirty clothes were strewn across my floor. My bed, with its colorful homemade quilt and needlepoint throw cushions, was unmade. The cats had tipped over my tower of books, again. My old crafts—a sock monkey, three dream catchers, macramé hangings—were gathering dust. A lone poster—CRAFTERS MAKE BETTER LOVERS—given to me by the Girl Formerly Known as My Best Friend on my thirteenth birthday, was peeling off the wall.
Worst of all, my oldest, saddest pair of granny underpants was lying right near his feet. “Come sit at my desk.” Once he’d moved, I kicked the underpants under my bed.
I powered up my desktop computer, a hand-me-down from my dad. Anne of Green Gables, who had taken a liking to Jacob, wandered in and jumped onto his lap again, kneading her paws into his sweater.
“What kind of adaptation should we do?” I asked.
“How about a screenplay?”
“Any particular scene you want to choose?”
“You pick.”
“Um. Maybe the third chapter?”
“Remind me what happens.”
“Lockwood is reluctantly given a room at Wuthering Heights for the night and the ghost of Catherine comes to the window.”
“It’s a ghost story?”
“Not really. I mean, yes, there’s a ghost—” I stopped. “Have you read the book?”
“No.”
“Have you started the book?”
“No.”
“Do you read at all?”
“To be honest? Not a lot.”
“Oh my God!” I blurted. “You are such a Cretan!”
His lips curled slightly. “I believe you mean cretin. If I were a Cretan, I’d be from the island of Crete. I may not read a lot, but it doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.”
My face felt like it was on fire. Cretin was one of those words I’d only seen written down. I’d never heard it said aloud.
“And I do read, just not a lot, and very slowly, because I’m mildly dyslexic. So, you basically just taunted a person with a learning disability. An amputee with a learning disability. Way to be a bully, Petula.” He was clearly enjoying himself.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. I kept my eyes on the screen so I wouldn’t have to look at him. “Look, why don’t I just write the scene and we’ll put both our names on it. You don’t have to stay.”
“That wouldn’t be fair. Why don’t you write it, and I’ll direct it?”
“Direct what?”
“I think we should make a short. I shot a lot of shorts in Toronto. I’ve got a great camera.”
“But who would be in it?”
“Some of your friends.”
My silence was his answer.
“How about the people from YART?”
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
He ran a hand through his thick hair. “Okay. Why don’t we start by writing the scene and figure out the rest later? I’ll show you how to format.”
It took us about an hour and a half to write the scene. It was mildly fun, writing in screenplay form. I told Jacob the rough plot of the novel as we worked. When we were close to being done he said, “Can I use your washroom?”
“Just a minute.” I ran down the hall and did a litter box check. I scooped a couple of fresh poops into the toilet, flushed, and spritzed the room with air freshener.
“Okay, good to go,” I said when I got back. “First door on your left.”
But Jacob was no longer at my desk. He was perched on my bed again.
And he was flipping through my scrapbook.