Belinda's Rings Read online

  Here, the librarian said, I’ll find the call number for you.

  WASSILY KANDINSKY, the cover said. Beneath the text was a picture of a painting: a grid of twelve circles made up of rings in rainbow colours. The inside jacket named the painting Squares with Concentric Circles.

  Wiley had said, Huh, how ’bout that, when Belinda told him about the coincidence. He said the painting looked like a kid had done it.

  That’s beside the point, Belinda said.

  Oh, he said. So what’s the point? Wiley was never quite on the same level. But then most men weren’t.

  2 Mirrors

  WHEN SQUID STARTED SCHOOL, Mum said it wasn’t a proper name to be calling him anymore. But I don’t care, I still call him it, even though Jess nags me, all the kids are gonna make fun of him. All the kids make fun of him anyway, and besides, Mum cheated when she named him, just stole the name Sebastian from her sister. I have a cousin back in England named Sebastian, who’s older than me. Older than Jess, even.

  It doesn’t matter, Mum said when I reminded her, rolling her eyes.

  But what if Auntie Prim comes to visit, I asked.

  Oh for Chrissakes, Grace, she won’t, was all Mum said. I could tell by the way she tried to shut me up so quick that Wiley didn’t know about the cousin. But Wiley didn’t seem to care about names, anyway. All he cared about was that his firstborn child inherited his long piano-player fingers.

  Unlike Mum and Wiley, I think names are pretty important. When I get married and change my last name, I figure I might as well change my first name too, while I’m doing all that paperwork. Grace is such a boring, geriatric-sounding name. Mum even admits she wouldn’t have called me that if it weren’t for Da. He wanted to name me the Chinese word for Grace, and Mum told him she absolutely refused to name me anything that people couldn’t pronounce. Lo and behold, I got stuck with Grace. I thought about changing it to something cool and unique like Phoenix, but then I figured it’d be hard to get used to being called something so different. So I decided to make just a little change. Gray. Yep. Scratch the ‘c-e’ and add a ‘y.’ I think it fits ’cause it could be for a boy or a girl, and I used to be kind of a tomboy. Also, the sea looks gray when you swim in it. The gray sea — sounds like something from a poem.

  That’s a colour, not a name, Mum said, but then I said, Gray isn’t a colour, actually. It’s a shade. That shut her up.

  So I figure Squid should get his own name too, like a person deserves. A unique name. People might say it’s weird, but what is weird anyway? It’s a relative measure. My best friend in Social, Rose — she said to me one time, it’s weird how you call your Mom ‘Mum,’ like with a British accent.

  I don’t have a British accent, I said.

  Yeah, but you say it like ‘Mum,’ like that.

  Well, how the heck do you say it?

  ‘Mawm’ she said, like a yawn.

  I laughed. That sounds weird to me. Sounds American. Y’all sound Amurrrrican, I said with a Yankee cowboy accent.

  She shrugged, started doodling in her notebook.

  Jess still calls Mum ‘Mummy,’ which is probably weirder by Rose’s standards. It’s a really kiddish thing to do, but Jess is like that. She just started shaving her legs last year, and she was in grade eleven by that time. I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth one night, and she showed me the Gillette satin-smooth triple-blade razor Mum bought her like she was all proud of it. She tore off the packaging while I spat in the sink, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and rinsed it, watching the froth swirl down the drain. From the corner of my eye, I could see her reading the little instruction pamphlet.

  You’re doing it wrong, I told her when she scraped the blades down her dry shin. Jesus, you’re gonna cut yourself. You’re supposed to do it in the shower. And you do it this way, against the grain. I took the razor from her and glided it up her calf. A few stiff black hairs sprayed out the sides of the razor and fell onto the toilet seat.

  How do you know, she said, her face turning red.

  I shrugged. I just do. I wondered if she’d seen the disposable razor I kept under the sink. One of Mum’s. But she probably wouldn’t have figured out it was mine, even if she had, since I was two years younger, and she was supposed to be the first one to do things like that.

  If I had been in a mean mood that day, I would have said, I’ve been shaving my legs for like, a really long time. And then I would’ve laughed and felt good watching her stand there holding the razor and looking like a little kid, a really sad little kid. Wearing those shorts she’s had since grade eight, the ones with the pleats in the front and the spaghetti sauce stain on the crotch. I used to have a pair that matched, minus the stain. I guess it was easier for Mum to buy us the same clothes back then. If you don’t like it, then buy your own, Mum said. So I did.

  But Jess clings to everything she’s ever owned, like a treasure. Like some piece of her will die if she doesn’t keep every single little thing with a memory attached. She even keeps her old training bras with the yellow sweat stains in the pits. I’ve seen them in her dresser. I don’t know if she still wears them. They’re so stretched-out they’d probably still fit.

  And this is who Mum leaves in charge. Mum even said it when she was leaving for the airport. Jessica, you’re in charge, she said, even though Wiley was standing right there. Maybe she said it to make Jess feel important. Don’t get me wrong, Jess is miles better than Wiley or me at looking after Squid. Mostly because she can act just like Mum when she wants to.

  Here’s a secret about Jess: she desperately wants to be exactly like Mum. Just before Mum left, she was copying everything Mum did, which meant that for each thing I did wrong, I got nagged twice. But Wiley got it the worst. They were like a tag-team the way they were ganging up on him. Wiley had been sulking on the couch the whole time Mum was bringing her suitcases out, and when she went over and bent down to kiss him goodbye, he turned his head to the side so she caught his five o’clock shadow instead of his lips.

  Mum clucked her tongue, put her hands on her hips. You’re a grown man, she said.

  I don’t know why you need this crop circles trip, he muttered. His eyes were dark and droopy, like a bloodhound’s.

  Because people need to do something for themselves once in a while, Mum said. You of all people should know that. Jess was standing right next to Mum like her trusty sidekick, glaring at Wiley even though their conversation had nothing to do with her. And after we’d watched Mum’s taxi pull away, Jess marched in and told him she would appreciate it if he could get over himself and participate in this family. It’s like she records Mum’s phrases, word for word, and tosses them out there whenever she feels like it. But Wiley didn’t say anything back, just closed his eyes and lay down on the couch, on his side. He put one hand over his ear.

  Seriously? Jess said. You’re a grown man!

  Jess has wanted to be like Mum ever since we were kids. She even wrote it in her diary when she was eight. Mummy is so pretty. I want to be just like Mummy. Pretty lame, eh? It was like she wanted someone to find it and read it and then think to themselves, My, what a nice little girl Jessica is. It’s like she wrote it for her teacher. Too bad the only one who ever read it was me. We had the same diary, except with different pictures on the covers. Mine was white with a rainbow and hers was pink with butterflies, but the locks were identical. We discovered that almost all diaries have the same locks and keys anyway, so what’s the point? I remember thinking I was so smart when I figured that out. I thought I was the only one who knew, until Jess told me she knew too. I had three or four other diaries, ones I got as presents and stuff, but I still only used the one. I kept all the keys, though. I kept them tucked under the velvet lining of my jewelry box, as if they were so precious they needed a special hiding place. As if the keys were the secrets themselves, everyone else’s deep secrets that they thought no one would ever find out about.

  Okay, maybe Jess’s diary wasn’t quite that lame. I actually
felt kind of sad for her when I read it. I still remember what it said because after I read it, I would hear the words in my head whenever I saw Jess looking at herself in the mirror. Mummy has green eyes and blonde hair and I don’t know why I didn’t get green eyes and blonde hair. It’s not fair. Mummy is so pretty and everyone says so. I told her I wished I looked like her and she said I still had a lot of growing to do, so maybe one day I would. But I don’t think I will ever grow green eyes and blonde hair.

  Jess was always — is always — looking at herself in the mirror. But she doesn’t do it the way most people do it. I’ve watched her when she thought she was alone. That might sound creepy, but it’s not like I have a little peephole in the wall between our bedrooms or anything. The way our house is set up, there’s this mirror in the hall with a little table underneath. Jess always leaves her brush and hair elastics there, even though Mum nags her to put them away almost every day. The hall ends at an open doorway that leads off into the living room, so there’s a wall mostly separating the two rooms. When you’re in the hall you feel like you’re hidden, like no one can see you. But when someone is sitting on the living room couch, the brown one, if they sit at the far end of the couch, it’s just the right angle to see the hallway and the mirror through the doorway, but it’s far enough away that the person at the mirror doesn’t know you can see their reflection. I think I’m probably the only one who knows this. No one else ever sits on that couch because it’s at a weird angle to the TV. Also, it’s lumpy and the springs stick out like elbows ’cause we used to jump on it when we were little. Anyway.

  Jess does this thing where she makes funny faces at herself in the mirror. Except they’re not funny to her. I think maybe she’s imagining she’s a supermodel. She’ll dab some lip gloss on and then pout, turn her chin and check out her pout from that side. Then she’ll act like she’s listening to someone talk, like chatting, nodding along, and then that imaginary person says something really shocking and she gasps and makes her eyes all wide. Then she’ll pretend to laugh with her mouth open and her teeth glinting. She’ll toss and tilt her head at different angles to see what the glinting looks like, freezing her smile in place. Sometimes Jess lip-synchs some words, but I can’t figure them out. Every time she makes slightly different faces, has different conversations, probably with different imaginary people. Maybe she sees some guy she likes. She never tells me which guys she likes, not even celebrity ones. In any case, it’s hilarious to watch. But as much as I laugh I also feel sorry for her because I know she’s just copying Mum, imagining she has Mum’s long eyelashes and green eyes instead of boring dark brown ones.

  I try not to look in the mirror too much, because I feel like I never see what I actually look like. I see what my brain thinks I look like, but it’s different than what I actually look like. You know when you see yourself on video or in a picture and you think, Ew, is that really what I look like? I sometimes use Mum’s bathroom mirror because it has two panels on the sides that are medicine cabinets, and if you open the panels so that they sort of face each other, you can see yourself from a whole bunch of different angles. And if you face the panels in just the right way, you can reflect your reflection, so that what you’re seeing isn’t backwards anymore, but the way that people looking at you see you. It comes in handy when I’m not sure if my hair looks funny. It might look great from straight on, but then when I see it from the reflection of the reflection, I realize it’s totally lopsided. Or there could be a lumpy patch at the back. The first time I figured out how I could look at my hair from the back, I noticed that I seriously needed to dye my hair again, because the bun at the back looked like an orange flower stuck onto the dark brown parts smoothed against my scalp. I couldn’t believe I’d been walking around like that.

  Sometimes I open the mirror panels and as I’m opening them and looking at myself I catch this angle of my face that I’ve never seen before, and I think, Whoa, who is that in the mirror? I once used Wiley’s video camera to make a video of myself, where I pointed the camera at myself and slowly rotated it all the way around my head, 360 degrees. I tried to do it so you couldn’t tell my hand was holding the camera and then passing it to my other hand behind my head. But it turned out looking all shaky. After I filmed it I couldn’t even watch the whole thing, it was so stupid. At the start you could hear me breathing through my mouth all wheezy, like an old man, ’cause the microphone had been pointed at my mouth.

  II

  WHEN THE CABIN DIMMED for the movie, Belinda flicked on her overhead light. The man sitting next to her had been taking more unsubtle peeks at her magazine, clearly hoping Belinda would notice. He removed his headphones, and she readied herself for him to inquire about the article she was perusing. The picture was certainly dazzling — an aerial view of the Bythorn Star crop circle in Cambridgeshire. Its outer circle framed a kaleidoscope of iconography: four rings unfurling into a star, contained in a pentagram, and encircled by flower petals. The article discussed how five elongated hearts could also be traced within the form. The cosmological language of symmetry made manifest.

  But the man said nothing. His hands curled into fists in his lap. Belinda could tell he was simply brimming with curiosity. She couldn’t pay attention to her reading, knowing he was on the verge of speaking to her.

  Hel-lo, she said in a friendly voice, a voice she usually reserved for small children and cute animals.

  The man looked startled. Hullo, he mumbled, and gave a little nod.

  Are you from England? she asked.

  Em, no. He cleared his throat and sat up straight in his seat. Just visiting, he said.

  Yes, me too, she said. Well — sort of. I mean — I was born there, but haven’t been back. For a while. She smiled, and silently thanked herself for having brushed her teeth and powdered her nose after the meal.

  He responded with what Belinda guessed was a smile back: a barely perceptible tightening at the corners of his lips.

  I’m Belinda, she continued. She held out her hand.

  Bartleby, he said, giving her hand a curt squeeze.

  Bartleby! she cried, too loud. That sounds very British.

  Yes, well, he said, smoothing the front of his shirt. My parents are British.

  Oh, mine too! she said.

  Really, he humoured her. Ahem.

  It’s not the purpose of my visit, though, Belinda said, slowly turning the pages of her magazine like cars on a Ferris wheel, so that Bartleby could plainly see each one passing. When he didn’t respond, Belinda tilted the magazine in his direction.

  See? she said. Did you know that more crop circles are reported in Southern England alone than in the rest of the world combined?

  No, Bartleby said, I didn’t. Interesting. He cleared his throat once again. Belinda wondered if it was a nervous tic. She’d read that people with OCD were usually quite socially awkward.

  There’s vital research going on right now, she said, slapping the magazine shut. Biological tests and such. We’re going to be collecting the samples.

  I see, Bartleby nodded. It occurred to Belinda that perhaps she was being intimidating. Oftentimes when she got into the particulars of her research interests, she came off sounding overly erudite until it was too late and the person had shied away. She felt sorry for Bartleby and his outdated navy pinstripe suit, which was already suffering horrible creases at the waist.

  So what do you do, Bartleby? she asked, not altogether interested. Perhaps if she engaged him in his own interests, she thought, he might feel less intimidated.

  Oh, well I — he began, then paused for a guttural throat-clearing. Actually, he continued, I’m a biologist.

  Ah! Belinda said. A thickness rose up in her chest. She hoped that Bartelby couldn’t see her cheeks reddening in the dim lights. So you do. . . research also? she asked.

  Yes, he said. I study marine life.

  A Marine Biologist! Belinda replied, and gave her hands an approving clap. My daughter wants to be one of those, sh
e said. She quickly realized that it was an insipid thing to say. Practically every child, at one point or another, dreamed about being a Marine Biologist. It was a typical phase.

  But she’s very dedicated, Belinda added. Her face burned with heat. I mean, she knows more about the ocean than most adults, she said. All those strange creatures — she knows all the names.

  Uh huh, said Bartleby. Well, my research is in phycology.

  Psychology? Belinda asked.

  No. No. Phycology, he enunciated. It’s the study of algae.

  You study algae? How interesting, she said, and meant it. After all, who knew one could base an entire career on studying green slime? He was probably paid quite well. Now that she’d been conversing with Bartleby, she could see how he was rather handsome. He had thick dark hair and a defined jaw-line. Even in his seated position she could tell he was tall; his feet were pushed under the seat in front of him and yet his thighs still appeared to float at a cramped angle. She imagined him standing on his long legs, wearing a white lab coat and glasses, and pouring solutions from test tubes into beakers. He could be quite dashing.

  Bartleby smiled weakly. He’d probably been teased by countless incredulous strangers about his research on algae. Actually, he said, there’s a lot to know. Marine vegetation is very diverse.

  Of course, Belinda said, nodding her head seriously. I’d believe it. I’m working with a biologist who specializes in plants. Land plants, mind you. I think he’s very highly regarded. Marshall V. Longfellow?

  I’m afraid I don’t really deal with those — types of scientists, Bartleby said.

  Oh, yes of course. Belinda swatted the air dismissively. You wouldn’t, would you. It’s all very specialized, isn’t it? Her voice had begun to flutter.

  I suppose you could say that, Bartleby said.

  Yes, well, what do you reckon about this film? Belinda pointed to the screen at the front of the cabin. I’ve heard good things, she said. On the screen, Kurt Russell was pacing determinedly through a grand hall instead of sprinting shirtless and brandishing a handgun as she expected. Belinda hadn’t heard anything about this film.