My window faced a red brick building that housed a Vietnamese restaurant on the main floor and apartments, like ours, on the second and third floors. The only view I could get was if I looked up beyond the roof of the building and occasionally see clouds, stars, the edge of the moon at around 10pm, and the random raccoon. My mom bought me a telescope (or rather acquired one from a suitor) the Christmas before and I wondered if this was some kind of cruel joke.

I was kneeling in front of my vanity mirror, which was balanced on the thin edge of my windowsill. I parted my hair in the middle and started tying one half into a tight braid, my trademark hairstyle inspired by Marianne Ravenwood in Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark. No one in my school watched that movie cause it was too old, they all watched Spider Man and the new Transformers movie and stuff like that, but Indy was where it was really at. The new Indy films weren’t even that good, only the old ones were worth watching and I must have watched Raiders like a hundred times on this $2.99 VHS we bought at a garage sale. Marianne Ravenwood was my idol, I idolized her, everything about me wanted to be her, if I could be her I’d be my real self. She always had a smart remark, an ace up her sleeve, a plan of action, she was ready for anything. I had the shot-glass-sized lid from a bottle of mousse beside my vanity mirror. When my braids were in place I picked up the shot glass just like Marianne did in her opening scene of Raiders, tossed the imaginary liquid back, wiping my lips with the back of my hand before turning the cup upside down in mid air to show it was empty, then slamming it down on the window ledge. If you’ve seen the movie you know what I’m talking about.

That’s when my mom flung my bedroom door open causing it to bang against the foot of my bed like a gunshot. She looked at the bed as though surprised to find it there, which just showed you how often she was in my room.

“Pack your bag you’re going to Glenda’s for the weekend,” she announced. She was all dressed up which, since she didn’t have a job, meant she was going out with her friends. She was putting on an earring with one hand and opening my closet with the other. She pulled out my red ski jacket and threw it on the bed and walked out, her way of saying there was no discussing it. But I just had a shot and wasn’t going to take being pushed around. I stood at once and ran to the doorframe, not daring to pass the threshold lest my disobedience surpass my actual capabilities. She was standing in the kitchen and placing dishes near the sink, which was the next best thing to ‘in’ the sink.

“I have school! I can’t miss school!”
“It’s just one day, don’t be stupid,” she said disappearing into the family room.
“Does Granny even know I’m going! She hates it when you dump me there.” There was no response, out of sight out of mind. I often thought about strangling her but my 12-year-old arms still had a long way to go to surpass her 34 years of age. I slammed my door as hard as I could.

I plopped my backpack on the bed and pulled out my schoolwork to replace it with clothes for the weekend. I reminded myself to grab my book, The Stand which I would virtually die without if I was at Glenda’s for a weekend. I slipped on my jacket, it was the first time since last winter I’d worn it but I didn’t really have a fall jacket, which would have been more suitable for this weather. I looked at myself in a vanity mirror angling it up and down to see what I looked like in it. I found a cigarette burn near the pocket I’d forgotten about. The charred black hole was melted hard as cardboard and stood out like a small bullet hole against the red. I would tell people it was a bullet hole, but of course who would actually ask. The creation of the hole happened when my mother had fallen asleep in this guy Howard’s lap. He was drunk and asleep on the couch. My mother’s hand flopped over and burned my jacket. Howard didn’t come around much after that, not because of the jacket, I think it was because my mom started calling him all the time even when he was at work. My mom started crying and calling all her friends and wailing away in Ukranian which I didn’t speak.

It wasn’t until we were in the car that I realized I’d forgotten my book. My mom was on the cell; she didn’t hear when I said, “Fuck” under my breath. My teacher said I wasn’t allowed to bring that book to class anymore because it wasn’t appropriate reading material for my age and she asked if my mother knew I was reading it. I nodded ‘yes’ and she glared at me the same way my mother did and the way Granny Glenda did, as though I was a complete goddamn mystery not worth understanding.

My mother called a succession of friends as we drove out to Markham where Glenda lived. I didn’t know how all these towns and things worked I just knew it was a place that was, according to my mother, “Lame” and “Suburban Hell”. My mom spoke loudly and bubbly in Ukranian to one of her girlfriends on the phone as if she was on top of the world, this was how she was when she was being fake. She laughed loudly so that it drowned out everyone’s conversation, she spoke loudly so everyone could hear her, she danced when no one else was dancing so people could watch her dancing and having a good time. Sometimes I felt sorry for her, sometimes I’d catch someone rolling their eyes and I felt really bad for her.

With her Canadian friends she uses words like “dude” and “cool” and “chill”. She could be using those words in Ukranian too but I wouldn’t know. My mother always tells her friends that she’s trying to teach me Ukranian and that I ‘refuse to learn’ and then they blame the television and video games. I don’t even have a gaming unit, a computer or cable. My mother taught me to say, “My name is Tanechka” in Ukrainian and that is all. She lit up cigarette after cigarette in the car and rolled down my window so that the wind wouldn’t touch her hair. Teachers often asked me if I smoked. Teachers are stupid, what 12-year-old smokes? If I smoked I’d be the biggest bad ass in my class.

I liked Granny Glenda’s no matter what my mother said about the suburbs. It was a real house not like our two bedroom apartment above the shoe store. She had a garden that had stone frogs and Noma lights. Her front door always had some decoration and this time it had a scary pumpkin face, which wasn’t scary at all but it was meant to scare little kids I guess.

Mom knocked and sighed deeply like this was a great effort. Granny opened the door, she was drying her hands with a dish towel.
“Well, come in,” she said frowning at the sight of us. Mom had that fake forced smile on her face.
“Thank you Glenda for taking her for the weekend,” she said as she closed the door behind us. Glenda glared at my mom, she didn’t say anything and I felt ashamed because my mom looked embarrassed.

“Go sit at the table Tanya. I’ll fix you something healthy to eat.” I knew she was saying that to make my mom uncomfortable which made me kinda mad. I followed Glenda towards the kitchen, passing the framed photographs that lined the hallway. There was one of my dad at my age standing with a person in a Panda suit. Both of them were waving. Then there was one of my dad as a teenager, his hair was cut mullet-shaped and his teeth looked way too big for his head. Apart from Granny Glenda and my dad’s dad, who didn’t live with Granny anymore, I didn’t know anyone in the photos.

My mom didn’t follow us into the kitchen. I took a seat at the table and watched as Granny walked back to the front door. I heard my mom say she’d love to come in but she really had to go. Granny said something like ‘how surprising.’ While they ‘talked’ I waited. Glenda’s kitchen was beautiful, like kitchens in family sitcoms. She had a big window above the kitchen sink and an aloe plant exploding from a pink pot like fireworks. On the stove something was cooking and steam was fogging the window and a nearby glass of cold water that Granny was probably drinking. Granny was very concerned with dehydration, she made it sound like something that could happen suddenly and without warning and with dire consequences. On the fridge were dozens of magnets with picture of kittens or puppies or children and all with funny jokes written under the pictures like “Ask your kids while they still know everything”. I knew Granny would be mad when she returned to the kitchen so I pulled out a drawing notebook from my bag and started to add to a very complicated picture I’d begun drawing of dinosaurs destroying the city. It was devastating and it felt good to add to it right about then. I scribbled in half a person sticking out of the dinosaur’s mouth, blood dripping down his jaw.