Free I Don't Have a Happy Place by Kim Korson

and one lonely suburban Jew who was forced to sit outside of catechism class on a bench, and who would get flashed by a perv during recess.
    Suffice it to say, the French speakers hung around with their kind on one side of the playground, leaving the bilinguals, who spoke English only when they felt like it, on the other. I rarely understood what was going on and waited for pity or translation and the occasional invitation to play. Bilinguals who spoke to me were hard to come by and I was not prepared to let Anne Irene Pasquale go, even if her mother made me eat cream-based sauces.
    â€œShe doesn’t have to go, you know,” I said. “It’s a free country.”
    I had no idea if Canada really was a free country, since I barely understood French and couldn’t follow a thing in geography class. But I’d once heard it on TV so I thought I’d bench-test it. Nathalie Tremblay didn’t care what I said. She crossed herarms and stared me down. Taller than all the fourth graders, she was rumored to wear Tickle deodorant. Her bangs were curled under and the braids that fell over each shoulder were neat and tidy, like two Marathon bars fresh out of the wrapper.
    My insides were still buzzy from the wiener incident, flipping a ruffian switch I didn’t even know I’d come assembled with. Gathering strength in my weak ankles, I kicked Nathalie Tremblay with my Frye boot. This was not Nathalie Tremblay’s first time in the ring, because she had maneuvers. As I hurled my leg toward her, she grabbed the stacked heel of my boot, biting her bottom lip with the enormous teeth that made her look like a beautiful rabbit. She held on. I tried digging the heel of my other boot into the ground but I was no match for my opponent. It took a good three seconds for me to lose my balance, falling hard onto the cement, bringing Nathalie Tremblay down with me. Anne Irene Pasquale took off in a panic either to tell or to hide, leaving us in a heap by the hopscotch court. We sized up the passing clouds for a few minutes, still tangled in our fall.
    â€œI like your boots,” Nathalie Tremblay said.
    â€œI really like your teeth.”
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    Stepping into Nathalie Tremblay’s house was like crossing the border into a foreign land, a dark little country decorated with mismatched furniture and chintz drapery. A small black upright piano took over most of the living room. There were a few houseplants and I noticed a green plastic watering can left on the rug. I thought of the young blond guy with the bowl haircut who showed up every Thursday with his own special watering cans to take care of our indoor potted plants. Peter Plant, I called him, but to everyone else, he was the Plant Guy. Our house had a lot of “guys.” We even had a live-in Filipina housekeeper who sleptin the basement. Riza was in charge of operations around our cramped three-bedroom house, calling my parents ma’am and sir and ironing underwear.
    Nathalie’s mother liked me to call her Mrs. Tremblay, which soothed me because there was never any question who the adult was. She had just come in from their square of a backyard, bringing sprigs she had cut from the lilac tree and placing them in a glass vase on the kitchen table, which made the whole inside of the house smell like we were outside. Mrs. Tremblay did the laundry, carrying a small plastic basket around from room to room with folded clothes for all three kids to put away. Mostly they threw the items at the back of the closet and she never said a word. She went to the grocery store, with coupons and a neat list.
    After school, Mrs. Tremblay held on to her strand of pearls, her only decoration, as she leaned against the kitchen sink listening to our news of the day. I took in her plain skirt and cardigan. She looked like a television mother and I wanted to hug her.
    â€œThanks for the cookies, Mom,” said Nathalie Tremblay,