Free Rabbit Ears by Maggie De Vries Page B

just now.”
    Mom doesn’t know that. She can’t. But she isn’t cancelling her trip. She’s leaving the house locked and empty. Sybilla is with a friend till Sunday, Coco will have to fend for herself.
    “I should stay home in case she comes,” I say, again. We have been having this same conversation over and over again for more than a week.
    “No.”
    I don’t say one word to her on the whole four-hour drive to Kamloops. She puts an audio book on, a mystery set in the Victorian period, but I can’t even stand to share sound waves with my mother. I plug myself into my own music, and sneak my way through an enormous bag of wine gums that I have hidden in my coat pocket.
    Kaya is just a kid and she is lost. Mom is her mother and she is driving away. And I … I am a greedy pig. I finger the roll of fat around my middle, and think about how, when I look in the mirror, what pass for my breasts kind of sit on top of all that fat. Gross. I went on a diet once, before Dad died. I lost twelve pounds. He actually commented on how good I looked. But jelly beans and ice cream have appealed to me a lot more than counting calories since then.
    The conference is at a lodge, a sprawling wooden structure, all logs and homespun tackiness. I pick the bed nearest the window, and plunk down my bag and myself.
    “I’ll just hang out here,” I say, and Mom frowns and goes off to register for the conference on her own.
    Why is she so upset? I’m here, aren’t I? And it’s not like I’m going to be going along with my mother to a bunch of sessions on childhood trauma and sexual abuse. If she’s angling for a career change, I don’t know why she doesn’t choose something a tad more cheerful.
    The moment the door closes, though, I wish I were out there with her. I imagine the phone at home ringing and ringing with only Coco to hear it. Kaya trapped, bruised and bleeding, begging us to come to her. I curl up in a ball on thebed. Where is Kaya right this minute? Is somebody hurting her?
    I sit up, teeth gritted. How could Kaya go there anyway? And then go back? And not call? It’s not like Mom was beating her or anything. What’s her problem? And how can Mom drive away into the mountains and leave her daughter to her fate?
    Later I follow Mom into the dining hall a little worried about how I’m going to get out again. There’s a speaker after dinner, but I’m sure not going to sit around and listen to somebody drone on and on about all the miseries of childhood. I’ve got enough of my own to deal with, thank you very much!
    I’m happy to see that it’s a buffet, at least, and the food is good, though the man who slices the roast beef isn’t generous. The dessert table is huge, three massive cakes at its centre, one chocolate, one layered with whipped cream and fruit, and one a plain cheesecake with three choices of sauce.
    I’m still in the middle of a slab of the chocolate cake when a hush falls over the room. A woman has appeared at the lectern. Behind her another woman, elegantly dressed, waits to be introduced.
    Mom turns her chair around so she can see. Waiters float through the room pouring coffee and removing plates.
    “Welcome to Kamloops,” the woman at the lectern says.
    I put down my fork. “I’ll see you later,” I whisper in Mom’s ear, and get only a fraction of a nod in reply. Mom’s eyes stay trained on the front.
    Sneaking out is awkward. Actually, it hardly qualifies as sneaking, since our table is in the middle of the room. I swearevery pair of eyes in the place passes over me as I creep by. I feel the outraged glare in some of them.
    Outrage or no, in less than a minute I’m easing the heavy door closed behind me. Free! I gaze the length of the hall. Now what? The pool? No chance. The games room? There’s a fitness room too. Ha! There are books in my suitcase. And homework. And TV, of course. In the room, not the suitcase.
    Kaya would go swimming. And maybe to the games room.
    I wander in the