“…there is nothing either good or bad,
but thinking makes it so.” —HAMLET, ACT 2, SCENE 2
It’s Sunday, and I just got home from Scoops. I need to shower to get rid of the ice-cream smell inside my nose. My back and feet feel sore, but part of me is still floating from having spent the first part of the weekend with Mick. Mick! It’s not the first time I catch myself saying his name out loud—the way Ophelia does when she thinks of Hamlet.
In the shower, I watch the water stream down my body—over all the places Mick touched.
Afterward, I go to my room and shut the door behind me. I take a deep breath before I start typing.
My name is Iris Wagner and I was born on May 11, 1995.
I nearly send just that as my reply to my father, but then I decide I have some questions of my own. So I add another sentence. My fingers tremble as I type.
Where are you and why are you getting in touch with me now?
I can feel my heart pumping underneath my T-shirt.
Nate Berg’s reply pops up almost immediately. What’s he been doing—waiting by the computer since he first wrote to me?
I am in Bangkok. I’ve tried to get in touch before, but your mother blocked my attempts. A friend here suggested I look for you on Facebook.
Mom blocked his attempts? That can’t be true. Why would Mom do something like that?
Well, now you’ve found me.
My heart is still pumping hard. I want to shut down Facebook. But there is already another message from Nate Berg. I can’t call him my dad. I know the mailman better than I know him.
I want to see you, Iris.
See me?
I get up from my desk. I stretch my arms over my head. From my bedroom window, I can see a man and his son walking a small dog. The boy runs ahead and his father calls him back. I peer out at the street. When I turn around, the computer screen is glowing in the dark room.
I try to imagine my father, sitting in a small room somewhere in Bangkok, waiting for my answer.
I heard you weren’t allowed into the country.
There, I think. I’m glad I said it. Let him know I’m on to him. That I know he did something illegal.
You’re right. I can’t come to Canada. But I have business in the US next month. We could meet in Plattsburgh, New York. It’s only an hour’s drive from Montreal. What do you say, Iris?
What do I say?
I have no friggin’ idea what I say.
I need Mick to help me figure things out. I can’t talk to him at school—not with everyone around—so I phone him on Monday night. Just hearing his voice makes me feel calmer. “I can only tell you one thing, Joey,” Mick says. “I wish I’d been able to set things right with my own dad. This is your chance. If you do decide to meet him in Plattsburgh, I could drive you there. We could make a day of it.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“What wouldn’t I do for you?”
The following Saturday, I’m awake before Mick. For a while, I just lie there, admiring him and feeling grateful that this is my life. Mick looks so peaceful when he’s sleeping, the dark hairs on his chest rising and falling with every breath. I snuggle closer. Mick smells so good, so warm.
When I’m too awake to stay in bed, I get up and turn on my laptop. My father and I have messaged each other a few more times since I talked things through with Mick. I said I’d meet him in Plattsburgh—and I asked him to send me his photo. So I’d recognize him.
This morning, the photo is there.
Everyone always says how much I look like my mom. I have her wavy auburn hair and green eyes, and we’re both slim and on the short side. But now, when I look at the photo of my dad, I see myself too. I recognize the high cheekbones, the way his eyes seem wider apart than most people’s. I wonder if when my mom looks at me, she sees him too, and I wonder how that makes her feel.
Mick startles me when he kisses my shoulder. I didn’t realize he was standing behind me. “Is that him?” he asks. “Daddy-o?”
“Uh-huh. It’s him. What do you think?”
“It’s hard to tell much from a photo. Not a bad-looking guy. Did you tell him I’d be coming with you to Plattsburgh?”
“I told him. And I explained you were just a friend.” I watch Mick’s face when I tell him that. I know he’ll be pleased.
Mick nods. “That’s my Joey.”
“He needed to know your name.”
Mick has stretched out on the floor to do his morning push-ups. “My name?” he says, without looking up from the floor. “What for?”
“He says my passport might not be enough. He’s going to fax us a letter saying he’s authorized you to take me over the border. To see him. Because I’m still a minor.” I whisper that last part. I don’t want to remind Mick of our age difference.
I hope Mick won’t be upset that I’ve given his name to my father. But Mick doesn’t seem to mind. He’s finished his push-ups and is stretching out his calves. “It’s probably a good idea,” he says, stroking his soul patch. “I gather he knows a thing or two about rules and regulations.”
I don’t mention Katie’s birthday party until Mick’s had his tea. He doesn’t want me to go. “Just tell her you’re too busy. Tell her you’re working on your lines tonight.”
Mick is making French toast, sprinkling it with icing sugar.
My cell phone rings. The call display says Mom. “I’d better get it,” I tell Mick.
“Hi, Mom,” I say. Then I yawn into the phone.
“What’s up?” I can’t help assessing my own performance. Convincing. A seventeen-year-old girl just waking up on a Saturday morning at her best friend’s house.
I put my hand over the phone so Mick won’t hear her asking if I remembered to floss last night. “Why are you whispering?” she asks.
“Katie’s parents are sleeping in.” I’m surprised at how easily the lie comes to me. I’m getting used to lying to my mom. It’s another way my life has changed since I met Mick. “Love you, Mom.” That part, at least, is true.
Mom sighs on the other end of the phone. “Love you, dolly.” I hope Mick didn’t hear that.
I’ve been at Mick’s a lot in the last two weeks. The fact that we get along so well in such a small place proves how amazing we are together. We haven’t had a single fight. And I’m not going to fight about Katie’s birthday.
Still, I feel guilty about missing it. “I haven’t missed one of Katie’s parties in ten years! I hate to let her down.” I make a pouty face, which works when I want something from my mom, but it doesn’t work on Mick.
“Stop pouting,” he tells me, and his tone is firmer than I’m used to. “Don’t you see, Joey? You’ve outgrown Katie. You’re going to need to let some things—and some people—go if you want to keep moving forward in your life. You want to move forward, don’t you, Joey?” Mick moves in close when he asks me that.
His dark eyes lock on mine. Mick says life is all about moving forward.
“Of course, I do. It’s just…”
“Just what?” I hate that he sounds impatient. I want the gentle Mick back.
“Just nothing.” I cut my French toast into perfect squares. For the first time since we’ve been together, I don’t know if I can tell Mick what I’m thinking. What I’m really hoping for. I know he’s got lots on his mind. He’s been on the phone nonstop with his lawyer in Melbourne; they’re trying to reach a settlement with Nial’s mom about child support. Mick also has to decide whether to take a directing gig here in Montreal. “The work’s not nearly as prestigious as the stuff I’ve been doing in Australia,” he explained to me last night. “I need to think about what’s best for my career, but let’s just say Montreal has its perks.” When he said that, he reached under my T-shirt and into my bra and tweaked my nipple. He tweaked a little too hard, and when I put on my bra this morning, my nipple still felt tender.
I haven’t told anyone about Mick and me. There’ve been a couple of times when I wanted to tell Katie— mainly so she wouldn’t keep thinking I was such an innocent. But there are people who know—or who must be figuring it out. Like Mrs. Karpman, the elderly woman who lives in the apartment next to Mick’s loft. She has a pet canary. I know because I hear it chirping when she lets herself in. “Nice to see you again, dear,” she said when we bumped into each other in the hallway yesterday. Her voice is low and raspy, and there’s a scar on her throat. She must have had some kind of throat surgery. Her hearing is bad too, because she wears hearing aids in both ears, and when I speak, I see she’s watching my lips.
“Mick…” I reach out across the narrow table for Mick’s hand. This isn’t easy for me, but I need to be able to tell Mick how I feel and what I want. “Would you come with me to Katie’s party?” I ask in a small voice. “Please.” No pouting this time.
Mick gets up from the stool he’s been sitting on. The more time we spend together, the better I’m getting at reading his moods. It’s another sign of how close we are. Now I can see the weather on his face has changed, gone stormy. “Iris!” he says so loudly that even if Mrs. Karpman hasn’t put in her hearing aids she will hear him, “what’s wrong with you?”
I don’t know what to answer when he asks me that. “There’s nothing wrong with me,” I start to tell him—but as soon as I say it, I know it’s not true. It was stupid of me to ask him to come. I know how important it is to Mick that we keep our relationship a secret. “It’s just…just… well…Katie’s been my best friend since second grade. Couldn’t we just drop by? We could say we ran into each other on the str—”
“No!” Mick’s eyes are flashing in a way I’m not used to. In a way that makes me nervous. Instead of being quiet, which would probably be smarter right now, I keep talking. I can’t help it. “I mean…we are together…aren’t we?”
I don’t know why Mick is getting so angry. I reach for his shoulder, thinking that will calm him down, but it doesn’t. It makes things worse. Mick shrugs me away. For some reason, I notice his nostrils. They are flaring like a horse’s. Then, out of nowhere, Mick extends his forearm and punches the wall between the kitchen nook and the window.
I shudder. If I’d been standing just a few inches closer, he’d have hit me.
“Mick! Stop it!” I’m shouting now too and crying at the same time. I’m too upset to think about Mrs. Karpman.
Mick’s hand is swelling up. The poor guy! What if he’s fractured a knuckle or his wrist? I need to get him some ice right away.
There is an ugly fist-size hole in the plaster. I close my eyes so I won’t have to see it.
Mick’s cell phone rings. “Damn it to hell,” he mutters. I rush to the kitchen for the ice. Mick is checking the caller ID on his phone. “It’s the lawyer again,” he says. “I need to take this.”
His voice is totally normal when he answers the call. How can he turn his emotions on and off like that? “Chuck,” he says evenly. “Give me a minute. I want to take this call outside.”
I stuff the ice cubes into a plastic bag. Mick grabs the bag from me without a word and walks out the door.
The loft feels eerie without Mick. I throw out my French toast. I’m not hungry anymore.
I remember seeing a hammer in one of the drawers in the kitchen. There are two framed prints on the wall behind the sofa. One’s a line drawing of the Bonsecours Market in Old Montreal. The other is more abstract— bright orange lines intersecting with pale blue ones. I’ll take the one of the Bonsecours Market and hang it over the hole Mick’s fist left in the plaster. Then we can pretend this never happened.